Allons Voler
by Seriana Ritani
Summary: Gambit's finally coming back to Bayville. But there's plenty of trouble waiting for him at the Xavier Institute . . . and something dangerous has followed him there. Sequel to "Flight."
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

* * *

It was one of the darkest and quietest hours of the night in the heart of Paris. The frantic traffic of the day had faded, leaving the streets empty and cool and sparkling with streetlights. A few scattered people and cars still wandered the streets, going to drink the night away at one of the glittering nightclubs or simply struggling to reach home after a long, hot summer day. The large, languid Seine River wandered through the city, indifferent to the time of day, the reflected lights of Paris fracturing into thousands of brief, feeble points on its agitated surface.

Amongst all the white and yellow lights, three tiny lights glinted red—two eyes and an ember.

Remy Gambit LeBeau leaned on the railing that ran along the bank of the river, slowly smoking one of his slim white cigarettes. The smoke of it rose up in lazy curves, losing itself in the blackness of the sky. His wandering thoughts followed it up over the city, to be caught by some mighty transatlantic wind and blown far, far away . . . to a beautiful house on well-kept grounds, where the sun would just be setting now. In his imagination, the long streaks of dusky gold light poured across the lawn, making the trees and the house leave astonishingly dark shadows on the grass. It was warm there, but the air smelled cool and clean as the oncoming night blew in through the open windows. It was all so much more real than the stuffy Parisian night around him.

_You're free to go, if you need to, and you're welcome to return, if you can_.

_"Did'je hear me when I said I was comin' back?"_

_"Yeah."_

_"Den you got not'in' to fret about."_

_If you can._

The cigarette had burned down to the filter. Gambit flicked it into the Seine and stood up to stretch his back. There was no time left to dawdle. Time to put on his makeup.

He reached into his pocket and found, underneath three-quarters of a pack of playing cards, a contact lens case and a bottle of eye drops. He sighed and rolled his eyes, feeling them already start to sting. Oh, well. Had to be done.

He turned and walked into the city to find a mirror.

* * *

"Rogue, it is time to come inside for dinner."

Rogue knew that. She'd known it the second that the wind picked up over the roof of the mansion, flinging her hair around her face. Over the summer, she had learned the difference between a wind that was about its own business and a wind that was taking Storm where she wished to go. She uncurled from her position, with her arms wrapped around her knees, and stretched her stiff shoulders and back. She had no idea how long she'd been sitting there of the roof, watching the sun go down past the edge of the grounds. Storm, wearing one of her gorgeous printed robes, rose up over the edge of the house and set her bare feet lightly on the tiles. The wind stuttered and died.

"Sorry," said Rogue. "Lost track'a time, Ah guess."

"There is no need for you to apologize. But if you do not come quickly, the food will grow cold and Logan will be cross."

Rogue smiled a little at the thought of Logan being 'cross' and lifted herself up off the roof. Storm stepped off the edge of the house, and her winds caught her and lowered her to the lawn. Rogue followed her in a leisurely dive, descending head-first until she was about six feet from the back porch and then swinging her feet down underneath her.

The dining room was quiet and empty. During the school year, it was nearly always full—more than a dozen teenage mutants had an uncanny way of filling up a room. But they had all gone home for the summer. Even Scott, who had always been there to keep her company during summer and Christmas vacations, had gone to Hawaii to visit his brother. Kurt had invited her to come with him to Germany, but she'd declined, preferring the quiet of the all-but-empty Institute to a swarm of strangers in a foreign country.

So Rogue was alone in the house with the professors, all of whom were seated at one end of the long table, waiting for her and for Storm. Hank and Professor Xavier were in the middle of a debate that had something to do with biology but that was too complicated for Rogue to follow. Logan seemed to be in a funk, regardless of the temperature of the food, but Rogue had lived at the Institute too long to be troubled by his mercurial moods. She took her chair and reached for the nearest serving dish, which was full of mixed vegetables. She served herself some and set to work picking out the lima beans with her fork.

From where she sat, she could see out the dining room windows to the front lawn, where the shadow of the house was stretching out towards the front gate. In just a few weeks, everyone would come streaming back through those gates: Kurt and Kitty, Scott and Jean, Amara, Bobby, Jamie, Sam . . . everybody. Almost.

Her fork stilled as her thoughts wandered away. She knew where all the X-Men were now, and she knew when she would see them again. But there was one friend left, one who'd never worn the red-and-black X of the Institute, who had no family to go home to. Where would he sleep tonight? Would he be safe? Would he be warm? Did he miss her? Would he really come back, as he'd promised? How long until then?

"Y'know, if you stare at them long enough, you start to see pictures in them?" asked Logan, shooting a pointed glance at the bowl of vegetables in front of Rogue's plate.

"Oh," said Rogue, flinching a little as she realized how long she'd been out of it. "Sorry." She shoved the bowl across the table.

"I cannot understand your adamant refusal to eat lima beans," said Hank, Reaching his plate across the table so Rogue could scoop the unwanted beans onto it. "I would remind you of their admirable nutritional qualities, but—"

"But it's summer, and Ah'm on vacation."

"They would do you a world of good."

"She's on vacation, Hank," said Logan.

"But she's so pale."

"Mr. McCoy," Rogue pointed out gently, "you're _blue_."

Logan now had his mouth full of chicken and couldn't laugh, but he made a very undignified snorting noise and struggled to swallow. Even Professor Xavier fought to hide a tiny smile.

Hank smiled. "_Touché_."

Rogue's own smile faded and died. She wanted to leave the table at once, but knew that would cause more trouble and discomfort for her than simply finishing the meal. So she looked down at her plate and ate in silence, trying not to feel lonely at the sudden memories that Beast's casual French expression had awakened.

* * *

"_Me voici, monsieur_."

Gambit stepped into the light of the one working bulb in the deserted _metro_ station. Two silhouettes, both taller than he was by a good couple of inches, lingered in the darkness outside the circle. The brown contact lenses over his eyes impeded his night vision more than he would have liked, but he was fairly confident that they hadn't brought backup.

"_Vous voilà_," one of the figures agreed. He stepped into the light, letting Gambit's darkened eyes have a good look at him. He was dressed in a dark business suit, well-cut and expensive, and above the collar of his shirt his face was inhumanly pale. His thick black hair was slicked straight back from his forehead, and both his eyes glinted as red as Gambit's own. "I was told you were the man to ask," he said, in clean and elegant Parisian French, "if I needed something done."

Gambit studied him carefully, still keeping a watchful eye on his unmoving companion. "Mutant," he observed, neither praising nor accusing.

"More or less," said the other, his voice suave and polite and just the slightest bit menacing. "Is that a problem?"

Gambit shrugged. "Long's you don't pay in mutant money."

His would-be employer smiled. "I assure you that the money is quite good."

"How'd you know how to contact me?" Gambit asked.

"I approached the New Orleans Thieves' Guild with my proposition, and they turned me down. Beneath their notice, they said. But one of the thieves told me in confidence that he knew of a freelancer with the skills I needed. You are the freelancer to whom he referred, are you not?"

_Robert_. Nobody else in New Orleans would be sending him business. Banishment was banishment, but brothers were still brothers. He'd have to contact Bobby and tell him to knock it off. Such actions were dangerous for a future guildmaster.

Gambit didn't answer the question. Instead, he asked one of his own. "What's de job?"

"The University of Paris has a very fine collection of genetic samples in my particular line of research. I want to have them. I have information on where they're stored and what security is in place around them, but I don't have the resources to remove them without attracting attention."

Gambit nodded, thinking. Compared to the bust he'd just accomplished, a university laboratory would be a walk in the park. He tried not to smile as he remembered the roll of film in his inside pocket, and what he planned to do with it as soon as this last mess was over.

"How much material we talkin' about? By size and weight."

"Fifty-six glass vials, each containing no more than a few milliliters of fluid. Fragile, but not large or heavy."

"You got de security specs wid you?"

The man held out a hand—not to Gambit, but to the silhouette at his left shoulder. The silhouette stepped forward and handed him a manila envelope. Gambit wondered idly how this second figure moved freely about in public when his whole appearance was far more flamboyant and noticeable than Gambit's eyes had ever made him. His hair was an extraordinary shade of pink that was either a mutation or a heck of a lot of work, and it extended all the way to his waist in thick, heavy waves. He wore a long, bright yellow coat with electric pink lapels. Gambit found the sight distasteful, and pointedly ignored him.

His better-dressed employer handed Gambit the envelope. Gambit opened it and slid the packet of papers out into his hand. There were floor plans, technical specifications of lock systems, notes on security cameras—just about everything he could have asked for. The things that weren't there, he could probably acquire without too much trouble.

"I'm gonna need a t'ousand _euros_ up front to cover expenses," Gambit announced, tucking the papers away.

The client counted out the bills and handed them over. Gambit tucked them into his pocket before continuing. "I do your job. You meet me back here in one week from now. You bring ten t'ousand dollars U.S. in small, unmarked, non-sequential bills. Also gonna need a U.S. passport an' a ticket to JFK."

"Anything else?" The silky voice managed to sound sarcastic without losing a fraction of its politeness.

"Dat just about do it."

"And what security can you give me for my investment?"

"You got de reputation of de guild dat recommended me. Dat ain't not'in'."

"I could use a name."

"Dat's somet'in I don't give wit'out compensation."

The other man smiled. "I am generally known as Sinister."

Gambit nodded. "Well then, _Monsieur _Sinister, you have just had the honor of hirin' Gambit. I have yo' goods here in one week. Good evenin'."

* * *

Rogue kept her arms crossed tightly around her stomach to avoid touching any member of the crowd that milled around her, resisting the temptation to lift herself up a few inches to have a better look at the new arrivals pouring from the airport terminals. She could have easily avoided this task—Storm would have gladly come to the airport instead—but she wanted to see Kurt, and didn't think she could stand the extra hour of waiting as they drove back to the mansion.

She stood on tiptoe, trying to see over the shoulder of the woman in front of her. Through the crowd, she caught sight of a head of glossy black hair, a tuft of which stuck relentlessly up in back. "Kurt! Kurt!"

"Rogue!" Kurt jumped up and waved, his two-fingered hand giving the impression he was telling her to 'live long and prosper'. He was having as much trouble as she was avoiding being touched, but endless hours of Danger Room training enabled them to weave through the hordes of people and meet in the middle of the lobby.

"Kurt!" Rogue threw her arms around him, pressing her face into his shoulder so she wouldn't accidentally touch his skin. He hugged her back, and she felt his whip-thin tail lash invisibly against her left calf. "Welcome home!"

"_Danke_," said Kurt. He released her so she could see him roll his eyes. "I mean 'thank you.' I've been speaking German all summer. Haven't been using zis thing much, either." He lifted his left hand to indicate his image inducer. "Everyone in my village knows vhat I look like. I hope it didn't get rusty or something." He poked it experimentally, decided it was working, and let his hands fall. "I'm glad you came to get me," he continued. "I missed you."

Rogue smiled. "Ah missed you, too."

Then, just because they were brother and sister, just because it had been a long summer, just _because_, they hugged one another again.

"So did you get to drive the X-Van out here?" asked Kurt, as the two of them maneuvered toward the baggage carousel.

"Well, _Ah_ wanted tuh fly yeh home," said Rogue, "but Storm said no go. So Ah got Scott's car instead."

"Zat's probably all for the best," said Kurt nervously. "There's my bag."

The bag, full of an entire summer's worth of laundry and souvenirs, was just about as big as Kurt himself. Rogue grabbed it as it approached on the conveyor belt and swung it, one-handed, over her shoulder without any visible effort. Several people stared.

"Um . . . Rogue?"

Rogue sighed and put the bag down. "Maybe you better carry it."

Kurt lifted the bag with a grunt of effort and followed her out to the parking structure.

"How vas your summer?" Kurt asked as he dropped his duffel into the trunk of Scott's cherry-red convertible.

"Nice," said Rogue. "Quiet. Did lots of training with Storm, on flyin' and stuff, and we all soundproofed the walls of Logan's room so he can sleep through the night without gettin' woke up by every little noise. How was yours?"

"Fun. And quiet. And full of _amazing_ food. My mother wrote down some of her good recipes for me to bring with, and I'm going to try them vhen it's my turn to cook."

"Better wait until everybody gets back," Rogue advised. "If you make it now and it's no good, Logan will _tell_ you. He's gotta be polite when the recruits are in the house. Well, _politer_." She swung into the driver's seat and buckled her seatbelt. Kurt sprang over the car and landed in the passenger's seat.

"Maybe I'll just try it by myself," he decided uncertainly.

"I'll join you," Rogue offered. "Gotta try another cheesecake anyway."

"Still having trouble vith zat?"

"Harder than it looks," Rogue complained.

Kurt didn't say anything until they were on the freeway, headed north. Then he asked, "So, anybody back yet?"

"You're the first. But Scott's flying in on Tuesday, and Jean's gonna pick him up, and they're gonna spend the night at Kitty's house and all be back on Wednesday. Everybody else is wanderin' in before school starts. Parents drivin' 'em up, mostly."

"Oh, good." Kurt hesitated, then plowed ahead. "And vhat about . . . vhat about Gambit? Any news?"

Kurt was one of the few people in the house that knew Rogue was waiting for news of the former Acolyte. The Professor knew, of course. Possibly Jean as well, though no one was quite sure anymore of exactly _what_ Jean knew. She was very discreet about her telepathy. Kurt was the only person Rogue had actually _told_.

She shook her head, noticing vaguely that her foot was pressing down harder on the gas pedal. "Nothin'."

"Can the Professor—"

"Ah haven't asked him."

Kurt nodded sympathetically. "I'm sure he'll be back."

Rogue smiled half-heartedly. "That makes one of us."

"Rogue?"

"Yeah?"

"Just because the car _can _do ninety-five doesn't mean you _should_."

Rogue blushed and eased up on the gas.

* * *

Gambit descended warily into the _metro_ station, a large duffel bag slung over his shoulder. Now that he had something valuable with him, this was a much riskier maneuver. But he still had surprise on his side if it came to a fight. He hoped it didn't, though. He didn't want to try flying back to the U.S. on his forged French passport. It was of poor quality, the best he'd been able to get on a small budget and short notice, and he didn't want to test his luck again by trying to make it back through U.S. Customs with the thing. Come to that, he didn't want Immigration keeping tabs on him as a French national. It would be easiest to return to his own country as a legitimate citizen.

Of course, ten thousand dollars would be handy to have around, too.

"Gambit?" asked the suave voice. Sinister was waiting for him in the pool of light, his garish companion standing as discreetly as possible in the darkness behind him.

"Here I am."

"Do you have the goods?"

"Dat depends. You got my payment?"

Sinister produced another envelope, opened it, and pulled out the contents one by one. "One United States passport in the name of one James Alexander Charpentier. One airplane ticket, coach, direct from De Gaulle to JFK tomorrow morning, same name. And ten thousand dollars in one hundred dollar bills, nonsequential and unmarked, as requested." He closed the envelope, which was rather bulgy with all the bills, and waited.

Gambit unshouldered the duffel, set it on the ground, and unzipped it. Inside were six small coolers. Gambit removed one and opened the lid. "Fifty-six vials of blood, in prime condition. As requested."

Sinister approached the cases slowly, the envelope held out. Gambit extended his hand to receive it. When the paper landed in his palm, he took it and stepped back.

"Thank you for your services," said Sinister.

"Pleasure doin' business," Gambit answered politely.

Sinister bent down and closed the lid of the sample-filled cooler. Then he ordered, calmly, coolly, elegantly: "Go."

A stripe of silver lightning flashed as Gambit extended his quarterstaff, but even he could not move fast enough. Sinister's goon opened his mouth, and something hit the thief hard in the chest. It was like belly-flopping into deep water from a thousand feet up, and it knocked him out just as quickly. He crumpled to the concrete floor, his staff skittering away from his nerveless fingers.

"Are the samples all right?" asked the yellow trench coat.

Sinister opened the lid of the cooler again. "They appear to be just fine. Thank you, Ruckus."

"My pleasure," said Ruckus.

"Would you take these to the car, please?" requested Sinister, zipping up the duffel bag around the samples. Ruckus hefted it to his shoulder and started up the stairs.

Sinister next turned his attention to Gambit. He lifted one eyelid to check that the young thief was quite unconscious, and saw the contact lens slip aside, revealing a slim crescent of the blazing red iris.

He chuckled. "Remarkably foolish, young man, to think that only your eyes reveal you for what you are." He let the lid fall and removed a case, like an old-fashioned cigarette case, only larger, from his inside pocket. Inside was a syringe and a small metallic disc, about the size of a dime. These were followed by a tiny yellow bottle and a few cotton swabs.

"Now then, _monsieur_," said Sinister as he shoved back the sleeve of Gambit's coat and shirt, "let's see what you can do." He prodded the inside of Gambit's elbow with inquiring fingers, making one of the pale blue veins stand out. When he'd found one he liked, he painted the site with iodine before placing the needle on the faint blue line and pressing gently in. He drew back the plunger of the syringe, filling the chamber with fresh blood as red as the eyes. Once he had all he needed, he put the sample away and pressed a bit of clean cotton gauze against the pinprick wound.

When he was confident that the bleeding had stopped, he tugged the sleeves back down and rolled Gambit over. The long coat jingled a little as Sinister tugged it up over Gambit's head, but nothing fell out of the pockets. He shoved the young man's shirt up to his neck, exposing the bare skin of his back. Then he placed the little disc on Gambit's spine, in the spot where no one could ever scratch an itch, right between the shoulder blades. The disc was pliable and very flat, the underside coated with the type of safe-on-skin adhesive used to affix heart monitor nodes to a patient's chest. Gambit would be able to remove it only if he were extremely flexible, which he probably was, and knew that it was there, which he certainly didn't.

By the time Sinister had tugged Gambit's shirt and coat back into place, Ruckus had returned.

"I have everything I need, I think," Sinister announced, standing and brushing off the knees of his expensive suit. "Let's make sure our friend does not miss his flight, and then we can return to the laboratory and see what he has given us."

* * *

Once again, we bring you "Fun with French Expressions," starring Gambit, with special guest stars Mister Sinister and Hank McCoy.

Touché: Literally, 'touched.' A fencing term used when someone has scored a point.

Me voici: Here I am.

métro: The Paris subway system.

Vous voilà: There you are.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

* * *

Rogue's alarm started beeping at four thirty a.m. She sat up and smacked it before it had managed more than three piercing trills. Kitty squirmed in her sleep, but drifted off again almost at once. No one else moved in the big, beautiful house. Thank goodness for that soundproofing on Logan's room.

As quietly as she could, Rogue changed into her workout uniform and stepped out onto the balcony. The sun wasn't yet up, but its light was already warming the darkness, making the world into a sepia photograph that was slightly out of focus. There was a bite in the air of approaching autumn, but it didn't chill her. Cold didn't bother her the way it used to, back before . . . back before she'd learned to fly.

Rogue flew.

The beautiful wide sky stretched out in front of her, growing larger the higher she went. Rogue dove into the kind of beauty that humanity had always dreamed of, but never truly seen: the first burning gold streaks of morning setting pink fire to the few lingering clouds. There was no airplane, no parachute harness, no hang glider separating her from the morning: there was just Rogue and the sun, reaching out joyfully to touch one another in the secret stillness of the dawn.

Nothing in the world could fly as freely as Rogue. Storm needed winds to support her; Canonball and Sunspot needed heat to ride on. But Rogue was part of the air, like a fish in the ocean, without any other propulsion than the whims of her own mind. Everything above the ground belonged to her.

When she'd climbed so high that her lungs were burning like a marathon runner's, she turned and angled down, bearing slightly east of where she'd taken off. She and Storm had often flown to the coast together, to practice aerial navigation over the landmark-free ocean. Now it was just Rogue's playground, a place where she could come for a few perfect minutes of solitude, to truly enjoy the happiness that her powers brought her.

No one else at the Institute quite understood. Now that everyone was back, she could still see the wariness in their eyes. No one understood why she could fly, why she could lift the X-Jet up with one hand if she wanted to, why she could take dishes out of the oven without a potholder and never even notice the heat. And because they didn't understand, they worried.

Rogue didn't worry. She remembered talking to Professor Xavier, deciding that it was best if she not recall how she'd come to have her new powers. She remembered feeling that it was the right thing to do. And she knew the knowledge she'd lost was stored safely in the Professor's mind, should she ever need it again. So she didn't waste her time worrying about why she could fly, and concentrated on loving the feeling of flight.

She angled down over the undulating surface of the ocean, reached her hands out in front of her, and plunged into the icy shock of the salt water. It was only uncomfortable for a second. Then it felt as warm as a good shower, the waves arcing off her head and shoulders and pluming out behind her in a blazing white crest as she sped along just under the surface. Storm had made her do this, for training, because water offered more resistance than air and it would make her stronger. But Rogue did it because she liked feeling the shining explosion of it, as though she were the heart of a star.

When her lungs started to burn again, she eased up out of the water and floated in the air, letting herself drip while she watched the sun come up.

And some deep, secret part of her, something that was not her at all, was quietly happy for a few precious moments.

Finally, the alarm on her wristwatch sounded. Sighing, Rogue silenced it and turned back toward the mansion, flying straight and low now. She'd be back just in time for wake-up, ready for the first pre-breakfast training session of the new school year. Logan was sure to make it a killer. It was his way of showing that he'd missed everybody.

* * *

Gambit came to in a 747.

He blinked and looked around. He was in a window seat in coach, with his seatbelt buckled loosely around his hips. The plane was barely a quarter full, and the two seats between him and the aisle were empty. There was a dull roar in his ears, part jet engine and part headache.

A flight attendant walked past him, then doubled back when she saw his eyes were open. "_Comment vous sentez-vous, monsieur?_" she asked politely. When he didn't respond at once, she tried English with a pretty Parisian accent that was soothingly smooth inside Gambit's head. "How are you feeling, sir?"

"Not so great," Gambit admitted.

She smiled. "I will bring you some water."

This she did, promptly and efficiently, adding two aspirin to help the water go down. She watched him to make sure he swallowed them, then took his empty glass.

"Thank you," Gambit told her. He blinked a few times, making sure that his contacts were still in place, before daring to look up at her. She was young and blonde, and smiled at him when his bleary eyes met hers. "I must have needed that. I barely remember gettin' on de plane."

This was an outright lie. He had no memory whatsoever of how he'd come to be on that plane. But it got her talking.

"I'm not surprised, _monsieur_. You were most unwell." Her polite tone was perfectly disinterested. He might have been hung over, or stoned, or running a fever of a hundred and five; it made no difference to her. "Your friend had to persuade some of the airport employees to escort you from security to your seat."

"Which friend was that?"

"I didn't hear his name. One of the men he hired mentioned that he had rather extraordinary hair."

That narrowed it down. _What_ had that guy hit him with? And what had they done to him once he was out?

He thanked the stewardess again, dismissively this time, then unbuckled his seatbelt and headed for the washroom at the back of the airplane. Once the door was latched behind him, he started a frantic search through the pockets of his coat.

The first thing he found was money—wads of it. He stacked the bundles of bills on the sink and counted them, arriving easily at the ten thousand dollars he'd been promised. He also found an airline ticket stub and a U.S. passport with his photograph—probably taken while he was unconscious, since his eyes were closed. Further digging revealed everything he'd had in his pockets before walking into that _metro_ station: his cards, his cigarettes, his lockpicks, the contact lens case, the bottle of special paint he'd used on the 'blacks' of his eyes, a handful of string, a pair of sunglasses, a lemon candy wrapped in cellophane—even his quarterstaff, which should not have made it through airport security. It was all there.

But if Sinister hadn't robbed him, killed him, or kidnapped him, what in blazes had Sinister done?

The 'fasten seat belt' light illuminated with a chime. Gambit stuffed his possessions back into his pockets and returned to his seat.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we're beginning our final descent into JFK International Airport. At this time, we ask that you stow all personal belongings, turn off all electronic devices, and return your seats and tray tables to their full upright and locked positions. We should be landing at about ten a.m. local time, which puts us just slightly ahead of schedule."

So he _was_ going to New York, Gambit observed as he fastened his seatbelt. That was good news. Even if he'd been followed, he could easily lose a tail in New York.

When the passengers were allowed to deplane, Gambit headed straight for the nearest men's room, took out the hated contacts, rinsed the irritating paint out of his eyes, and donned his sunglasses. It was a blessed relief to be able to see properly again. Then he located the airport's post office.

He broke one of his hundred-dollar bills buying yet another manila envelope, a postcard, and some stamps. Into the envelope he put several wads of cash, totaling slightly more than ten percent of what he guessed was the total value of his fee, his ticket, his passport, and his expenses. On one of the bills he scribbled a note.

_My tithe. Remy._

All Guild thieves tithed to their Guild. To neglect or delay the payment, even once, was to be permanently disgraced. Of course, Gambit knew that he was permanently disgraced already; banishment was not one of those temporary arrangements that was forgotten when everyone had calmed down. But he still paid his tithe. It was one last, forlorn, outrageously expensive sliver of hope that one day he might be able to go home after all.

On the postcard, his message was longer, but no less brusque. _Thank you. Now stop it. I'm fine. DB._

The postcard showed the Manhattan skyline, with the Statue of Liberty standing in the forefront. _Greetings from New York_ was printed across it in lurid yellow letters. Bobby would get a kick out of that. He loved snickering at anything that was exclusively for tourists.

Gambit addressed the envelope to Jean-Luc LeBeau, and the postcard to Robert. He dropped them both into the mailbox with a twinge of nostalgia for the beautiful white house with the pillared porch where they'd be delivered within days. Then he left the airport and did not look back.

His first stop was a corner store that boasted one-hour film developing. He handed over the precious roll, which he hadn't dared to trust to a developer while in Europe, and secured a promise from the girl behind the counter that it would, in fact, be done in one hour.

In the meantime, he located a seedy, pay-by-the-hour motel where he would not have ever considered actually sleeping and paid for an hour's access to a hot shower.

Under the unenthusiastic trickle of water, he went over every inch of himself, looking for marks, scars, implants, wounds of any kind. _What_ had Sinister done to him? There was a spot on the inside of his elbow that might, twelve hours ago, have been a needle mark, but there was no way to tell for sure. He scrubbed through his hair, looking for a shaved surgical site, and felt inside his mouth for microphones or other equipment embedded in his teeth.

It was ridiculous how not-hurt he was. Why had he been knocked out at all?

Nor were there traces on any of his possessions. He emptied all the pockets and examined every object, his mutant eyes revealing every trace of black-light-sensitive ink or electronic circuitry. At least, they would have revealed these things, had there been any. There weren't.

Weird, weird, weird. _Que c'est bizarre._

He dried off with the inside of his coat, not trusting the hotel's off-white towels, dressed, and returned to pick up his photographs. They'd turned out very nicely. Gambit picked out the one he liked best, tucked it into his pocket, and destroyed the others with a tiny charge from the palm of his hand. He couldn't help smiling to himself as he turned northward. It was a _very_ good picture.

So far, he'd seen no sign of anyone following him. In the crowd of the airport, and then the city, it was possible that he could have missed a tail, but as he moved away from downtown and out into quiet suburban neighborhoods it became less and less likely that anyone was tracking his movements. He didn't know why, but all the same he was glad. He didn't want an audience for his return to Bayville.

* * *

Rogue shoved her way into her usual spot at the X-Table, the picnic bench where the Institute students gathered for lunch when the weather was good. Unfortunately, the person she'd shoved was Jamie. Immediately there were five Jamies crowded onto the bench, all protesting "Hey!" in identical voices, while Amara and Kitty lay on the grass, looking dazed.

"Pull it together, man," Bobby hissed. "Not on the first day back. Come _on_."

In an eyeblink, there was only one Jamie again. Amara and Kitty climbed back onto the bench, Amara dabbing feebly at a streak of milk that had ended up on her shirt. Life as usual for the X-Men.

"You have Baker yet?" Kurt asked Sam, leaning over to catch a glimpse of his schedule.

"Next period," said Sam, turning the paper so Kurt wouldn't have to strain his neck.

"Good luck," said Kurt fatalistically.

"Why?" demanded Sam. "Is that bad?"

"Baker's sophomore science is the hardest class at Bayville High. And he doesn't like mutants. I think we break too many of the laws of physics for him. Just don't talk in his class. Don't move, don't breathe. Don't do anything but turn in your homework. Right, Rogue?"

Kurt looked to Rogue, the only other senior at the table, for validation of his claims, and found her staring into the middle distance, sipping absently at the straw in her carton of chocolate milk.

"Rogue?"

"Hm?" Rogue spat out the straw and snapped back into focus. "What?"

"Baker's science."

"Oh. Yeah. Bad. Ah wish Mr. McCoy still taught that class."

"Maybe we can take it home-school," Jamie suggested. He'd gone a little pale, even though as a new freshman he was still a year away from anyone's sophomore science class.

"Don't worry, you guys," Kitty told them. "You'll be fine. Just don't disagree with him if you can possibly help it. He ripped into Scott one time about the conservation of energy."

"A teacher got mad at _Scott?_" Amara demanded. "_Our_ Scott?"

"And Scott got mad at a teacher," Kitty affirmed. "It was scary. Like that one time when Scott and Logan got into that huge fight."

"You mean the time the house blew up?" Bobby deadpanned.

"Well . . . yeah. But it didn't blow up _because_ they had a fight."

"So says you."

"Anybody else have gym next period?" Kurt asked, running a finger down his own schedule.

"Me, but Ah'm not goin'," said Rogue. "Ah already got all mah gym credits. It's scheduled by mistake or somethin'. Ah'll go bug the office and get them to switch me."

"You can come keep us company in Baker's science class," Sam suggested.

"No way."

"Are you gonna get a free period?" asked Kitty. She sighed tragically. "Only one more year and then I'll be a senior and get free periods, too."

"Ah dunno what Ah'll do," said Rogue evasively. "Take somethin' more fun than gym, though."

"Pottery," Amara suggested. She was always happiest up to her elbows in mud.

"Not pottery," said Rogue.

They happily squandered the rest of the lunch break comparing schedules and thinking of strange classes Rogue could take. When the bell sounded, Rogue gathered up the remnants of her lunch and went to throw them away, her mind wandering again.

"What are you humming?" Kitty asked.

"Ah'm not humming."

"Yes, you were." Kitty hummed back at her, and Rogue recognized the tune. _Dans something something something, lon digidigidon . . ._

"Oh, that." Rogue shrugged. "Somethin' Ah heard once." She didn't want to share that song with Kitty, or with anybody. It was her secret.

Where _was_ he?

As she dumped her lunch in the garbage, her gloved hands curled into fists of disappointment. She'd waited for him all summer, and not felt impatient; summer was a good time for waiting. But school had started again. Life was flinging her forward before she was ready to go. And there was no sign, no word, _nothing_ from Gambit. The song was one of the few proofs Rogue had that he'd been real at all.

And what, she was forced to ask herself, would he want to come back for anyway?

The thought put her out of temper. She headed for the school building to take her bad mood out on whoever had messed up her schedule.

* * *

Jet lag was a miserable thing. It was barely eight in the evening, and Gambit was exhausted. The good news was that he had made it as far as Bayville proper, thanks to a wizened old man in a rusty pickup truck. The bad news was that he was slowing down, and it would be dark and cold long before he could walk the rest of the way to the mansion.

He'd spent a few nights in this town, sleeping in the open in varying degrees of comfort and safety. He could rest here for a few hours and move on when he was feeling more alert. He was about to head for the nearest bolt-hole when he saw a flash of silver in the shadow of a building.

All of his thieving, magpie-like tendencies kicked in, and his tiredness was relegated to the back of his mind. He detoured towards where he'd seen the silver glimmer.

He stepped slowly into the darkness, warily scanning the alleyway for what it was that had attracted his attention. For a moment, he saw nothing. Then there was a quick, deep gasp, as of someone bracing themselves for a charge. Gambit knew he had less than a second to act, and so he did.

His staff was out and extended like lightning, and it slammed into another staff with a force that jolted his shoulders. The woman on the other end of the attack clearly meant business.

She was mid-height and wiry, all protruding bones and tough, thin muscles. Over one eye, she wore a patch. In the other burned fury, fear, and determination.

With a snarling grunt of effort, she flipped her staff around and attacked again. Gambit blocked cautiously, trying to get a feel for her fighting style. He hadn't sparred with another staff fighter in a long, long time. If the woman hadn't obviously been so determined to kill him, the experience might even have been fun.

He found a hole in her defense and jabbed through it, tapping her shoulder with the end of his staff. It was barely hard enough to leave a bruise. Then he retreated and let her attack again, timing her movements, watching her balance. Another gentle tag landed against her left side. After a few more strikes, he landed a quick blow exactly on the top of her shaggy black-haired head.

"We done yet?" Gambit asked. "Or do y'wanna try fo'best of seven?"

"Filthy smart-alec topsider human," she spat.

"I give you de first two," Gambit allowed. He took a hand off his staff, watching her carefully in case she decided to make a jump for him, and took off his sunglasses, letting his eyes flash red. "But I take exception to 'topsider' an' 'human'."

Her whole attitude changed at once. "You're a mutant?"

"Sure ain't a zebra." He collapsed his staff, seeing her battle-tensed muscles relax, and extended a hand. "Gambit," he announced. Those who made strict distinction between 'human' and 'mutant' tended to be more comfortable with the powers-inspired aliases they all bore.

A little hesitantly, she took the hand. "Callisto," she announced.

Gambit turned the hand over and kissed it. "_Enchanté._"

She snorted, smiling very faintly, and drew her hand away. She let her staff come to rest on the ground, and Gambit saw that it was just a long piece of thin steel pipe, sturdy but clumsy. She was good, to use such a cheap homemade weapon so well. He discreetly tucked his ridiculously expensive telescoping carbon steel _bo_ inside his jacket.

Now that he felt secure enough to take his eyes off Callisto, Gambit spared a glance for the rest of the alley. Callisto had her back to a plain door in the brick wall, above which was a blandly lettered sign reading _Walgreens Employee Entrance._ A piece of wire was stuck in the deadbolt.

"You Morlock?" Gambit asked.

"No business of yours," said Callisto, but with more habitual hostility than active dislike.

"Was once my business to know about everything an' everybody in dis town," said Gambit, shrugging. "Y'ain't Brotherhood an' y'ain't Institute, an' dese days dey's only one other mutant group in Bayville, even if dey lie so low even I wasn't sure dey was real. Glad to finally meet one o'your clan."

"And what do you want?"

"Shoot de breeze. See what's happenin'." He sent a significant glance at the door. "Looks like y'forgot y'keys."

"That's no business of yours," Callisto snapped again. The staff was suddenly back off the ground. Gambit didn't reciprocate.

"Well, it just so happens I ain't a half-bad locksmith," Gambit told her. He reached slowly into his pocket and extracted his pick case. "_Bouge-le ou perd-le,_" he told the glaring woman, dodging past her to kneel in front of the door. He pulled out the wire and tossed it on the ground, then inserted two of his slim metal picks and started prodding at the pins inside the lock.

"What are you doing?" Callisto demanded.

"It's easier t'do it if y'don't talk," said Gambit. "Can't hear it click."

Just at that moment, it did click. Gambit spun the lock, removed his tools, and pulled the door open. "_Voilà_."

Callisto didn't walk through the open door. "Why did you do that?"

"Bein' friendly. And tryin' t'crack into a drug store leads me to believe some a'your party might be unwell."

Callisto nodded. "A cough. It's just 'what's going around,' but what goes around tends to stay around when you can't get at food or medicine."

"Well, den." Gambit led the way into the pharmacy. "You'll want cough syrup." He took a grocery bag from the cashier's desk, shook it open, and headed into one of the aisles. "Any preference on brand?" Without waiting for an answer, he took three bottles of Robitussin from the back of the shelf and dropped them in the bag. "Oh, an'dis stuff's good, too," he added, taking some packets of Theraflu.

Though still eyeing the interior of the store as though it were a gas chamber, Callisto seemed to decide that this opportunity was too good to waste. She grabbed another grocery bag and started grabbing anything and everything she needed: band-aids, rubbing alcohol, ibuprofen, Tylenol, aspirin, ace bandages, soap, shampoo, fingernail clippers. "Antibiotics," she muttered to herself as she combed the shelves. "I need antibiotics."

"Lemme check." Lockpicks in hand, Gambit disappeared into the pharmacy where the prescription drugs were stored. He emerged a few minutes later with a bottle of Amoxicillin.

Callisto's eyes slid straight past the bottle to the half-open door behind Gambit. "You can just break into the pharmacy?"

"Lock like any other."

She made a move for the door, but Gambit stopped her. "What you need from in dere?"

"There's stuff in there that will sell on the street for hundreds of dollars a pill. We could buy food for _months_."

Gambit pulled the door shut and felt the lock click into place. "Bad idea."

"We need that stuff!" Callisto snapped.

"Y'need t'stay far away from dat stuff," Gambit corrected her. He took her by the arm and steered her out the way they'd come. "An' I tell you why. Someday you gonna get caught. Ain't pro enough to avoid it forever. And when y'do, you got it made. No jury in de world gonna convict someone for stealin' medicine for sick kids. No DA in de country even gonna bring it to trial. But de second y'start tradin' in de hard stuff, even t'buy medicine fo'dose same sick kids, y'ain't not'in' but a drug dealer, an' dat means hard time. So just take what you need." He shoved her out the door and pulled it shut behind them, feeling the lock engage.

Callisto looked like she would have liked to be angry, but seeing the two plastic bags full of medicine and supplies she couldn't quite manage it. She sighed and took the bag Gambit was holding out to her. "I suppose I should thank you."

"Well, don'put yo'self out." Gambit put his picks away and brushed off his coat, radiating affronted dignity.

"Thank you," Callisto managed.

"Yo' welcome," Gambit answered.

"These supplies mean a lot to us."

"I bet."

"If there's anything we can do to repay you . . ."

At these words, Gambit finally smiled. "Well now y'mention it, I could use someplace safe t'sleep a few hours."

Callisto smiled back. "We don't have much, but I think we can arrange that."

* * *

For your convenience, this chapter's translations.

_Que c'est bizarre:_ Weird.

_Enchanté: _Enchanted. Even in French, this is an overly formal and old-fashioned way to tell someone you're glad to meet them.

_Bouge-le ou perd-le_: Move it or lose it.

_Voilà_: There it is; there we go. You may notice that this expression gets used for _everything_.

Oh, and for all those of you who are pronouncing Remy's brother's name as "Robber-t," it's not. It's "Row-bear." Learn to drop sounds. It's a liberating experience.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

* * *

"I'm starting to remember how it feels to be in school," said Kurt, dropping into a chair around the now-cleared dining room table with his fellow students. Schoolbooks were scattered where the serving dishes had been.

"How does it feel?" asked Bobby.

"Sore," said Kurt. "Before-school training with Logan, school, after-school training with Scott. I'm going to be even sorer tomorrow and I'll have to do it all again. _Wilkommen_ to my life."

"It's good for ya," said Rogue. She was highlighting passages at random in the first chapter of _Crime and Punishment_.

"Easy for you to say, Vonder Voman."

"Kurt!" Kitty snapped.

An awkward silence suddenly fell across the table, the way it always did when someone mentioned Rogue's new powers when she was in the room. Rogue resisted the urge to groan and just leave so they could have yet another whispered, worried conversation in private. But she was so, so tired of stumbling into those conversations.

"Kitty, it ain't lahk Ah have cancer. They're just powers. Just like we all have. Mah powers."

"But they're _not_ your powers!" Kitty answered, almost stumbling over the words in her rush to get them out before she lost her nerve. "Where did they come from, Rogue? Just _tell_ us. Whatever it is, it's so much worse not knowing."

Now everybody was blatantly listening. Rogue hated being the center of attention, but there didn't to be any way out of it now. But she spoke just to Kitty, pretending that the rest of the X-Men were somewhere far away.

"Ah _don't_ know. Ah cain't remember. But the Professor knows, and he says it's all right. Can't that just be enough for you? Can't y'all just let it lie? I've got the powers and that's that. No use worrying about what Ah can't change, even if Ah wanted to."

"You don't want things to go back to normal?"

Rogue turned in her chair for the only X-Men in the room who might understand: Cannonball and Sunspot. "Sam, Roberto . . . would you give up flyin', if you could?"

Sam shook his head. "Not for anything."

"No way," echoed Roberto.

Rogue turned back to Kitty. "There ya go. This settled yet?"

Reluctantly, Kitty nodded.

Kurt fidgeted in his seat. He was always uncomfortable when other people were upset, and was always quick to propose cheering plans. "Vell, if it's settled, zen I sink it's time for a pool party. First night with everybody back, no real homework . . . last one in the vater's a rotten egg." And, suiting action to the word, he was gone in a puff of rotten-egg-scented smoke.

And suddenly everyone was smiling again. And as Rogue raced Kitty upstairs to get their bathing suits, Kitty phasing and Rogue flying, no one followed her movements with worried eyes.

Within minutes, the pool was full of splashing X-Men. The noise disturbed the teachers from their after-dinner meeting, and once Kurt pushed Jean into the water an all-out war erupted with abandon. Even Professor Xavier ended up with water across his shirt. The only person who didn't get wet was Storm, because everyone there knew better than to challenge Storm in a waterfight.

Scott stood off to one side as the fight went on, smiling at his teammates but staying well out of range of any roughhousing that could dislodge his visor. Only Rogue, staying on the edge of the battle herself, noticed him. She shook her head, smiling. Careful, cautious Scott. She and Scott shared the sad bond of being the only two Institute students that were truly handicapped by their powers. They'd always been friends because of that, quietly understanding and trusting one another in a way that the rest of the team, even Jean, couldn't share in. He'd brought her to this house, and the freedom that she'd found here. It seemed unfair that she could fly while he, who deserved it so much more, couldn't.

Well, darn it, he would today.

Rogue sailed up out of the pool, swung over Scott's head, and grabbed him under the arms from behind. "Hope that sweater's washable," she told him as she pulled him off the ground.

"Rogue!" he protested, but she could hear that he was both gasping and laughing. His legs flailed awkwardly against nothing. Rogue was always surprised by how ungainly people could be, even normally graceful people, when they were airborne. "Hey! Put me down!"

"Clear the deep end!" Rogue shouted. Ray, Sam, and Amara scrambled out of the way. "You gotta show us how they surf in Hawaii."

"I don't know how they surf in Hawaii! I tried about twenty times and I could never stay up."

"Gee," said Rogue as he twisted awkwardly in her grip. "Wonder why."

And she dropped him.

He landed with a tremendous splash, and came to the surface spluttering, his clothes drenched and dragging him down. But he was laughing. And so was everyone else.

And so, Rogue realized, was she.

Perhaps everything would be all right after all.

* * *

The Morlock tunnels felt more like home than anywhere Gambit had been in a long, long time.

The darkness and humidity had the same feel as a Louisiana bayou, where he'd gone for solitude when he was young. But unlike his former residence, this wasn't a place people got exiled from. This was where the exiled ended up.

The Morlocks were a ragtag bunch. They were of every age and background, from young children to hunched old men and women. Nearly all of them were visibly mutated, with reptilian features or distorted proportions or horns or tails or spikes. Five of them were lying next to an oil-barrel fire, bundled up in ragged blankets on stained and torn old mattresses, convulsing with coughs. Callisto immediately sat down among them and began measuring out the Robitussen. Within fifteen minutes, all five of the patients were asleep.

Callisto introduced him to the clan and explained how he'd helped her, and Gambit immediately found himself seated on two flattened couch cushions next to another fire, which was burning in the other half of the sawed-off oil barrel, conversing with the other Morlocks who clustered around the light and warmth. He was welcome here—more welcome than he'd been anywhere in ages.

No one asked him where he'd come from or why he was there. This seemed to be considered poor manners. But no one seemed to feel any embarrassment at staring at, and even touching, his face and hands and hair. He was much more human in appearance than most of his hosts, and they seemed fascinated by him: the dark peach color of his skin, the five fingers on each of his hands, the roundness of his ears and squareness of his teeth and natural red-brown color of his hair. Only his eyes seemed to be of no interest to anybody.

Callisto came and sat next to him as soon as she'd put away her new stockpile of supplies and checked that all of the sufferers were asleep.

"Quite a place you have down here," Gambit told her. He meant it as a compliment, and she took it that way.

"It's hard," she admitted, "but we do all right with what we have."

"Mind if I ask y'somethin'?"

"You can ask. I might not answer."

"Why do y'all go it on your own down here? Dey's a big mansion and a whole lot of money in dis town fo' mutants who need it. Why're yeh here an' not enjoyin' central heatin' in de Xavier Institute?"

Callisto snorted. "Everything has a price."

"_Sans doubte_."

Callisto turned and called into the darkness. "Evan!"

"What?"

From a small side tunnel off the main chamber appeared a familiar, glowering face. Gambit allowed his eyebrows to raise a little as he surveyed the young man he'd known as Spyke. "Well, hello, Prickles. We was wonderin' where you ended up."

"That's none of _our_ business," said Spyke.

His snarling was much more effective than it had once been, in part because his voice had grown deeper and in part because he'd grown a set of armored plates across his entire upper body. Even Gambit, who had a very low opinion of the headstrong and hot-tempered ex-X-Man, felt vaguely intimidated.

"Gambit wants to know why we're all here instead of in the Xavier Mansion swimming in the pool every afternoon," said Callisto. "I thought you were the best one to answer."

"Why are you interested in the Xavier Mansion?" Spyke demanded. "And why are you interested in us?"

"Because you're interesting," Gambit retorted. "I ain't on Magneto's payroll dese days, if dat's what's worryin' yeh."

"Magento's supposed to be dead."

"Well, dat would explain why my paycheck stopped comin'."

"All are welcome here," said Callisto sternly. "You know that, Evan. Old scores stay aboveground."

Spyke, still looking annoyed, but pacified by Gambit's assurances, sat down at the other side of the fire.

"I'm interested in de Xavier Mansion," said Gambit, figuring that a show of good faith would be worth his while, "because dat's where I'm headed. I got an invitation from de Professor a while back. I'd like to know what's waitin' fo' me dere."

"A lotta problems," said Evan sulkily.

"Dat was real specific. T'anks."

Evan sighed, and his armor plates rattled softly against one another as his chest expanded and contracted. "Professor Xavier set up his school to train X-Men. They're like . . . like an advertisement, like a present to the world to show that we come in peace. So they've got to be perfect. Perfect students, perfect soldiers, perfect kids. And once they're perfect, he sends them out to risk their lives protecting ordinary humans—humans who are stupid and cruel and could never imagine working that hard, humans who _hate_ them. So if it's okay to put the best mutants in the world into the line of fire to protect any stupid human, then . . . well, what are we? If the best of us will always be worth less than the worst of them?

"But down here, mutant lives are worth protecting. Down here we mean something, even if it's just to each other. And I like living in the sewers and liking myself better than living in a mansion and taking flak from mutant-hating freaks every day."

He settled into sullen silence, as if he expected Gambit to disagree with him. But Gambit only nodded. "I appreciate dat. _Merci_."

"Why are you going?" Callisto asked.

"I was invited."

"Being invited doesn't mean you have to go."

Gambit shrugged. "I'm goin'."

Callisto let it drop.

One of the smaller Morlock children chose that moment to jump up on Gambit's back and pull on his hair, probably to see if it was a wig. Gambit pulled her up over his shoulder and into his lap, gave her a brief, thorough tickling, and let her go.

And suddenly every child in the clan realized what Gambit was. He was an adult who still had the energy to play.

He was swarmed by seven or eight kids, all of them climbing on him, tickling him, pulling on his clothes, trying to dig through his pockets. In their manic laughter, he could hear how much they craved contact and attention. And because he knew what it was to be a child among stressed and unhappy adults, because he needed to laugh as much as they did, because having his pockets picked necessitated retaliation, Gambit played back.

Somewhere amongst the tickling, pulling, jumping, tossing, shrieking, giggling, and shouting, one little boy's flailing foot dislodged the disc adhered to Gambit's back. It slid out the hem of his shirt and fell onto the gritty cement floor, and no one noticed it.

* * *

Rogue's hair was still wet, but now it smelled of shampoo instead of chlorine. She climbed into bed and dropped onto her pillow, not minding the damp spot she knew she'd leave. It would dry by morning.

Across the room, Kitty was weaving her own damp hair into a braid. She claimed that this was to keep it from tangling, but Rogue knew how thrilled Kitty would be to wake up and find her head covered in brunette waves. Not that it would happen. Kitty's hair was going to be dead straight until the day she died.

"So I saw Lance today," said Kitty.

"Mm-hm." Rogue closed her eyes and pulled the covers up to her chin. Lance was not one of her favorite subjects these days, but Kitty had yet to notice her roommate's lack of enthusiasm for the topic.

"He's back in school."

"Mm-hm."

"And he's got a job. He's a mechanic at that little auto shop on Valdemere Road."

"Mm-hm."

"Rogue, are you listening?"

"Course not. Ah'm tired."

"You just don't like Lance."

"Kitty, _nobody_ likes Lance. He's Brotherhood. They smell. Except Wanda, and she's just creepy."

"People like Lance. Some people."

"Sure. You."

"Other than me."

"So go find them and tell them about how great he is. I bet they'd rather listen to that than sleep."

"But you like Lance, don't you?"

Rogue opened her eyes to roll them and lifted her head off its comfortable pillow. "What do you care if Ah do? You do. Why d'you care what Ah think? Ah ain't datin' him. An' that's my last word. G'night." She flopped back down and rolled over to face the wall.

"What if, tomorrow—"

"G'night, Kitty."

"But—"

"Time fer you to shut up now."

"But what—"

"You're done."

"What about . . . oh, fine." Kitty shoved her hairbrush into the drawer of her nightstand and lay down. "Good night, Rogue."

"Mm-hm."

Rogue waited until she was sure that she wouldn't provoke another round of chatter from her roommate before squirming into a more comfortable position. Kitty _did_ have to bring up Lance just before bed. Now she'd have nightmares of airplanes and fire, of drugs and confusion. And it wouldn't be the last time. The only way to shut Kitty up about her infatuation would be to tell her what part Lance had played in Rogue's kidnap last spring. But she'd promised she wouldn't do that, so she was stuck.

It was late, and she needed to get to sleep, with nightmares or without them. There would be school in the morning. So she closed her eyes and pressed her face into her pillow, taking deep breaths, remembering that she was safe in her own bed. Last spring was far, far away, and Lance and Pietro were the only remnants of what had happened then. Time to forget about it. Time to move on.

* * *

Though there was no daylight, Gambit knew it was still well before dawn when he woke again. The Morlock tunnels were dark and silent. One fire still burned low, keeping the sick warm, but the other had faded to embers. Across the cavernous space were makeshift beds: battered mattresses like the one on which he slept, ancient sofa cushions, piles of pillows and other rags.

Gambit sat up and slipped his arms into the sleeves of his coat.

"Going already?" Callisto stood up from where she'd been crouched next to the still-burning fire.

"De day's young," said Gambit. "Lots to do. But I t'ank you for de hospitality."

"So now we're even."

Gambit stood up and brushed himself off. "_Non_. Now we friends. When you an' yours need help, y'find me."

"When you need a place of refuge, you will always find it here."

"I hope so."

Gambit fished in his pocket as he crossed the room to her, searching for the change from the bill he'd broken for yesterday's purchases. "_Voilà._ An' don'you turn y'nose up at it, not when dey's hungry kids down here." He pressed the bills into her hand and confidently stared her down. "Just remind me a'de way out."

Callisto pointed. "Second left off the tunnel. Two lefts and a right, third from the end on the right-hand side, across the bridge, two more lefts, and up the ladder."

"_Merci_." Gambit bowed his head with a smile, then turned his back on her and went on his way.

It was still dark, cool, middle-of-the-night early morning when he emerged from the tunnels, but as he headed northward out of town the approaching sun gave definition and shading to the vague shapes his mutated eyes perceived. Everything was quiet except the birds and the sound of his own footsteps in the gravel on the side of the road.

Why was he going back?

He had a promise to keep, certainly. But he'd resolved long ago that when he came to the Institute, it wouldn't be just to hand Rogue her winnings. He was going to try the life he'd watched so intently, to see if he could survive the strange and foreign existence of an X-Man. He knew he was going to try, he just didn't quite know why.

Rogue was something to do with it, certainly. But Gambit knew how stupid it was to base all your decisions on a pretty girl, especially when that girl was off-limits for a number of very compelling reasons. And the prospect of a comfortable bed and regular meals had its attractions, too. But he could get all these things elsewhere, if he wanted. He was more than capable of making a living as a professional thief or as a mercenary. In five years he could probably buy his _own_ mansion. And pretty girls were easy enough to find in this world, if you were good-looking and dangerous and had a Creole accent. So why, really, was he coming back?

A memory flickered across his mind: a white house, sitting in a pool of perpetual gray-green shadow underneath the bowing branches of the ancient trees. It was nothing like the Xavier Institute, all red-brick New England respectability, but somehow the one reminded him of the other. The sense of activity and community was the same. He was barred there, but he had a chance here . . . a chance to call somewhere home again. It certainly wasn't the home he would have chosen, but it was something, and something was better than nothing. He'd been living out of his pockets for too long. He was tired, and lonely, and wanted to see a friendly face after months of wandering solitary and unseen among hostile strangers.

The front gates of the house came into view. Gambit grinned at them as he remembered a little bit of what it felt like to be coming home.

* * *

_Sans doubte_: doubtless. 


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

* * *

Rogue woke up enough to realize that the heat of yesterday had faded to a shadow of its former uncomfortableness, but that even so, she was too warm. She squirmed a little, intending to kick her feet out from under the covers, but found a piece of slick paper lying under her hand. A photograph, from the size of it. 

She didn't remember falling asleep with a photograph. Rogue scooted up in her bed and fumbled for her reading light. The little flare of brightness stung at her bleary eyes. She blinked furiously, waiting for her pupils to dilate, and tried to make the shapes in the little picture form into some sort of sense.

Then, with a jolt of recognition, she registered the image. Remy LeBeau, smirking, his eyes gleaming, his coat hanging casually behind him, was sitting on the armless shoulders of the Winged Victory of Samothrace.

Excitement coursed through her like the happy shiver of stepping into a hot shower after a cold day. Suddenly, she was no longer sleepy, or overheated, or melancholy, or lonely. Remy was back.

Not bothering with socks, or shoes, or even with the floor, Rogue shot straight out of bed, leaving the blankets in a tangle halfway across the room, and went soaring through the open window to her balcony. And there he was, standing on the lawn, grinning up at her like he'd never seen anything so funny in all his life.

"You came back!" Rogue hardly bothered to check her speed as she dove down to him. Remy caught her around the waist and spun with her, his coat swinging out behind him, laughing at her.

"I was plannin' t'ask if y'missed me," he told her, setting her on her bare feet in the dewy grass, "but I guess dis answers my question."

Rogue took hold of the lapels of his coat, unwilling to let go lest he disappear again. "Ah can't believe it," she told him, hardly able to speak above a whisper.

"_Quel manque de foi!_ Told'je I would, didn't I?"

Rogue didn't have an answer to that. All she wanted to do was bury her face in his shirt to see if he still smelled of bourbon and cayenne pepper. So she did. The scent brought back a swirl of memories: that feeling of confusion and fear, being lost far from home; the giddy excitement and haunting guilt of her first 'pinch'; the bone-shuddering rhythm of riding in boxcars; one wonderful morning lying in the grass and laughing. She felt his arms slip around her back as he hugged her.

"Ah missed you," she mumbled into his shirt, unable to believe she was admitting this to him—that he was here for her to admit it to. "Ah was so sure yeh'd taken off an' forgotten all about me. Ah was ready tuh kill yeh if yeh showed yer face in Bayville again . . . but then Ah'd wake up in the middle a'the night and realize I'd been dreamin' about that afternoon in the fog, an' wishin' Ah was back there."

Gambit scoffed. "Cold, wet, lost, an' goin' crazy?"

"Yeah."

"Me, too."

"You miss me?" Rogue asked, ashamed that she was asking, terrified of the answer.

"_Comme un fou_. Like crazy, _chère_." She felt him rub his face against her disheveled hair. "Y'smell so good."

Rogue laughed. "What do Ah smell like?"

Gambit sniffed again and considered. "Magnolia, mebbe? Somethin' southern."

Rogue pushed herself out of his embrace a little so she could look at him again. "Are you okay? You hurt or anything? Where've you _been_?"

Gambit smiled, and the smile was a little sad. "_Laisse tomber, chère_. I'm here now, an' here I'm stayin'. If your Professor'll still have me."

"Course he will. He doesn't send people away."

"Just t'be on de safe side, you better keep dat picture to yo'self. Some a'your big brothers might not take it in de right spirit."

"That picture . . . Remy, _don't_ tell me yeh broke into the Louvre."

"Okay, _chère_. I won' tell you."

At the sight of his wicked smile, Rogue couldn't help smacking him on the shoulder. Though she'd done it gently, she wasn't sure how much of the wince was play and how much was genuine pain. His grin didn't fade, though, so she must not have hurt him too badly.

"I cheated fightin' your Cyclops, so I figured it was only fair t'give you your end a'de bet. But she was a little heavy fo'me t'get all by my lonesome. _Desolé._"

"Yeh coulda got killed!"

"Would you'a cried?"

"If Ah did, it'd only be because Ah learned tuh make cheesecake for nothin'."

"When _do _I get dat cheesecake?"

"Y'ain't been home five minutes yet!"

"But I like cheesecake. An' fair's fair. You owe me."

"Ah hate you."

"Uh-huh."

Morning found them still on the lawn, sitting on Gambit's coat, talking and laughing without any thought for the hour. They probably would have sat there until well into the afternoon if Kitty hadn't stuck her head out the window to shout for her absent roommate.

"_ROGUE! You're gonna miss TRAINING!"_

"Oh, crap!" Rogue jumped up. "Ah gotta go."

"See y'at breakfast," said Remy.

Rogue tried not to grin like an idiot at the thought of him coming to breakfast, like a part of the team, a part of the family. She failed. So she fled up to her room to hurry through training before he could disappear on her again.

"What's going on?" Kitty demanded, both hands behind her head as she rushed to put her still-straight hair back into its usual ponytail.

Rogue zoomed to her dresser and yanked out a clean uniform so hastily that she almost pulled out the drawer. "Gambit's back!"

* * *

Gambit grinned as he watched Rogue go soaring back to her bedroom window. It was so good to see her again, to annoy her and make her laugh and see her fly. He suddenly appreciated how much he had missed her. 

He stood up and pulled his coat back on. Rogue was glad to see him—that was one good thing. Now to charm the rest of the household. A household full of intensely trained super-powered mutants that, to a man, hated him. (Except the telepaths, ironically enough.)

_Eh bien_.

Though you never had a second chance to make a first impression, Gambit decided to enter the house by knocking on the front door. Couldn't hurt. His knock was answered by a pajama-clad Amara with her mouth full of toothpaste foam.

Amara made a noise of astonished gagging, and her eyes about doubled in size. She looked to be in danger of either choking, spitting, or biting the head off her toothbrush.

"Just nod if de Professor's receivin' visitors dis morin'," Gambit instructed, smiling a little at her plight.

Amara nodded and stepped backward to let him into the hall, then went tearing off in search of a sink to spit in. Gambit watched her go, then strolled over to the closed door of Professor Xavier's office. He knocked and was admitted.

"Welcome back, Gambit." The Professor was at his desk, already dressed and having a cup of tea. "I'm glad to see that you've returned safely."

"_Merci_." Gambit took a seat on the couch and allowed the Professor to pour him some tea. "Came t'see if your offer still stood."

"It stands, and will stand. There's always a place for you in the X-Men."

"But what kind of place? Before I take my boots off, I'd like to know what I'm signin' up for: what's expected of me, an' what I can expect from you, an' all de terms an' details, squared from de start."

The Professor gave him a long, slow look. Gambit got the impression he was the first potential X-Man to approach the Institute as a business arrangement. But he was a professional, and knew not to accept anything without finding out what was wanted of him in return.

When the Professor spoke at last, it was not with the question Gambit had expected. "Why did you come back here?"

Gambit had a number of glib and inaccurate answers ready for this, but somehow the look on the Professor's face told him that none of them would do. The first thing that was expected of him, at least in the confidential security of this office, was honesty.

"Been askin' mahself dat very question," Gambit admitted. "I kin tell y'for sure why I'm _not_ here, at least. Most'a your kids came here because dey ain't got nowhere else. _C'est pas moi, ça_. I can keep myself all right. So I ain't come to beg not'in."

The Professor nodded, but made no reply.

Now that he'd established this, Gambit struggled to know what to say next. How could he explain why he'd come back? Besides Rogue, of course, but he wasn't going to give her to the Professor as a reason.

"I watched your students," he said, beginning again. "When I was workin' for Magneto, an' after. Knew everywhere dey went, every'tin' dey did. An' I'd just think, sometimes, that it wouldn't be a bad life. Havin' some'tin' t'work for. Havin' a team t'work for it wid."

That was all the explanation he ever gave. Professor Xavier never asked for anything more.

* * *

"Rogue?" 

When Storm entered the Danger Room, morning training was already in full swing. Rouge had just dodged a mess of lasers and was now busy crushing the cannons one after the other. Storm ducked under a sheet of ice that Bobby had just haphazardly thrown and lifted herself up into the air where Rogue could hear her over the noise. "Rogue!"

Rogue pulled one of the laser cannons out of the wall and threw it at Kitty, who phased through it without even blinking. "Yeah?"

"The Professor wants us in his study."

Rogue nodded. "Logan! Ah'm steppin' out!"

From his vantage point on an elevated platform to one side of the room, Logan nodded. Storm and Rogue both glided down to the Danger Room door and out into the hallway.

"What's up?" she asked as they headed aboveground to the study. Storm was walking now, but Rogue stayed in the air. Storm was too used to her flying to be shocked by it anymore.

"I am not certain. He said he needed us to act as 'witnesses,' though he did not say what he intended us to witness."

A little knot of dread in the back of Rogue's mind cried that they would be witnessing the Professor throwing Gambit out of the grounds. The voice of reason insisted that not even Gambit could have used up all the Professor's patience in less than half an hour, but the dread remained nonetheless.

When they entered the office, they found Gambit and the Professor sitting across from one another, drinking tea. Two empty chairs stood next to them, so that they'd all be sitting in a square facing one another.

"Come in, please," said the Professor. "Gambit would like to negotiate the terms of his acceptance into the X-Men, and he would prefer to have witnesses present."

Gambit gave Rogue an appreciative glance-over, enjoying the carefully fitted uniform and the band of forest green that ran across her chest. Then, as if to apologize for being so forward, he stood up and pulled her chair out for her, even though it wasn't pulled up to a table.

Rogue bit her tongue to keep the blood from rushing to her face. To have Remy pay her such particular attention when they were alone and on the run was one strange thing. To have him do it when her professors were watching was something else entirely. Was he going to do it front of _Kitty_? Rogue shuddered to think what her roommate was going to say if Gambit kept behaving like this. Then she shuddered to think what she would feel if he stopped.

"We are ready to witness," said Storm, taking her chair with the kind of grace that Rogue could only dream of having.

Gambit returned to the couch. "_Eh bien_," he began. "Your terms, Professor."

"My terms," the Professor repeated. "These are my terms. While you're part of the X-Men, you will be subject to the same rules and responsibilities as all other members of the team. You'll go to school and make sufficient progress toward graduation. You'll train with the team before and after school and on Saturdays. You'll take your turn making dinner and washing up. You'll keep your things picked up from the public areas of the house. You will not use your powers outside the Institute grounds, except to protect life and property. You'll respect the established chain of command. You will not smoke in the house or in front of the younger students. And when the team needs you, you will be there."

Gambit pressed his lips together, considering. "Dese are mah terms," he answered at last. "Everyt'in' you know about me, from any source at all, you keep to y'self less'n I give you permission t'say it. When I decide it's time fo'me t'go, you let me go, an' none of you tracks or follows me."

"Y—" Rogue started to protest, but sharp looks from all three of the others silenced her. The Professor reached out to put a hand on hers.

_It has to be that way, Rogue. He will never stay if he feels trapped._

"While I'm here, I can expect de Institute to provide my food, shelter, clothing, medical care, transportation, education, and trainin'," Gambit continued. "I will have equal status wid de other students in everything. Keep in mind dat dis includes legal protection, personal privacy, spendin' money, an' access to the school facilities."

The Professor nodded thoughtfully. "One further condition on my part. While you are affiliated with this Institute, you will obey the law. All of it."

"I will obey de law," Gambit returned, "except when I must break it to protect mahself oh de members a'dis team."

"And if such an incident occurs," the Professor answered, "you will inform me of it as soon as you can."

"If I feel dat's in de best interest a'de Institute."

The Professor nodded. "Agreed."

Rogue saw Storm shoot the Professor a warning glance. She couldn't hear Storm's thought, but she heard Xavier's response._ This isn't about proving his trustworthiness. It's about proving mine. _

"Sounds like we have an accord, den," said Gambit. He offered his hand, which the Professor shook.

"Breakfast will be starting in a few minutes," said the Professor. "Rogue, would you mind showing Gambit up to the empty bedroom at the end of the boys' hallway? Then you can go and get ready for school."

"Yes, sir."

"After you're done eating, Gambit, we'll discuss your registration at Bayville High, and equip you to start your training with the team."

"_D'accord_." Gambit sprang lightly to his feet and held out a hand to Rogue with a very wicked smile. "_Mam'selle_, care t'accompany me upstairs?"

Storm raised her eyebrows in such a way as to make Rogue extremely unwilling to take Gambit's hand. She brushed past him, just high enough off the ground to look the taller of the two, and glided out of the office.

"Hey," Remy protested as soon as the door was closed behind him. "Y'know I was only teasin', _chère_." He caught her around the wrist, and although she could easily have pulled away from him, she allowed herself to be pulled down until her feet rested on the floor.

"Ah know," Rogue acknowledged. "But did you _see_ the look on Storm's face?"

Remy flashed his wicked grin. "If dat's all it takes t'shock her, den in a week we'll turn her hair back t'brown." He slipped his arms around her waist and pulled her close to him.

Rogue studied his face, shaking her head slowly. "Ah don't _believe_ you."

"_Quoi_? Ain'nobody watchin' now."

"No, Ah mean . . . Ah mean Ah don't _believe _you. Are yeh real? Are yeh actually standin' in the middle of the hallway and flirtin' with me? Or is mah alarm gonna go off in ten seconds?"

"Y'must have pretty vivid dreams."

"But yeh cain't be _real_. Boys lahk you, with trouble in their smiles . . . _stop_ that . . . they're for other girls. Not for me."

Remy sighed and let her go. "Well, if y'say so. Better point me in de direction a'dese other girls, den. Danger Room, right?"

"Hey!" Rogue grabbed his coat and pulled him back, and now he wasn't able to conceal his grin.

"_Bon_. I like you better mad dan moping." He offered her his arm. "So let's go see my room."

* * *

Breakfast was in its usual chaotic full swing when Scott finally made it to the kitchen. Kurt was hanging off the cabinets, looking straight down into the toaster while he waited for it to pop. One Jamie was in the fridge, one was using the microwave, one was getting dishes and one was double-checking his backpack's contents. Jean's breakfast was flying through the air toward her, not a drop or a crumb spilling. Jamie's ice dishes (which he used so he wouldn't have to wash them) were melting on the stove. Kitty's head was stuck through refrigerator-Jamie's chest as she hunted for a yogurt. Ray and Roberto, though not actively adding to the madness, were both taking advantage of it by sitting on the counter. 

Scott sighed and began shoving his way through the chaos. "I just want a granola bar," he insisted as he squirmed past Amara. "That's all, I swear."

"I'll get it, Scott," Jean told him. The cupboard door popped open (much to Kurt's annoyance; he swung on it for a second before teleporting over to the cupboard where the tableware lived) and a box of granola bars flew into his extended hand.

"Hey, granola bars!" Kitty snagged one out of the bottom of the box on her way past. Scott opened the box and looked inside; she'd taken the last one.

"Most psychotic meal of the day," he sighed, tossing the box in the garbage. "Bobby, will you at least put the dishes in the sink?"

"What dishes? Oh, those. Are those mine?"

Scott rolled his eyes. Then he rolled his eyes again at the futility of rolling eyes that nobody could see.

"Good morning, _mes amis_. Hope we're not late."

Silence fell in the kitchen.

Gambit stood in the doorway, leaning against the frame with his arms crossed, smirking. Rogue stood at his right hand, and it was obvious to everyone that _she_ was rolling her eyes.

"Everybody, you remember Gambit, Ah guess. Gambit, this is everybody. Ray, Roberto, Jamie, Kitty, Kurt, Jean, Jamie, Amara, Sam, Bobby, Jamie, and Scott. And . . . Jamie, again."

"_Enchanté_."

"Gambit." Jean set her cereal bowl aside—well, up—and crossed the room to shake his hand. "It's good to see you back. Welcome home."

"_Merci_._" _Gambit willingly shook her hand, then looked to Cyclops. "Guess you're now my C.O."

"Guess so," said Cyclops.

The two young men were within an inch of one another's heights. Scott had his arms folded across his chest, his eyebrows lowered in a glare that was hidden behind his ruby sunglasses. While he was standing facing Gambit, Gambit was turned away, almost glancing over his shoulder at his new field commander. He still had Jean's hand, and had positioned himself so that he blocked Rogue from Scott's view.

Gambit grinned to Scott's scowl. "Good luck."

He let go of Jean, urged Rogue forward into the kitchen with a hand placed in the small of her back, and started enquiring about breakfast.

* * *

Rogue deliberately chose the right-hand side of the back seat, as far from the driver as possible, as she climbed into the X-Van. She could see that Kitty was almost bursting to interrogate her. She only walked that stiffly when she was really, really struggling to restrain her excitement. 

Roberto took the passenger seat, Kurt, Ray, and Bobby took the middle bench, and Amara and Jamie crammed themselves into the back. Rogue stared out of the window with her bookbag clutched to her chest.

Kitty started the engine and shot out of the garage. Before they'd even reached the Institute gates, she had started squealing.

"Oh. My. Gosh. Oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh! Tell me _everything_."

"Kitty," pleaded Rogue, making one desperate appeal to her roommate's better nature, "_please_ don't do this tuh me."

"Do what? He came back, right? And you missed all of practice and half of breakfast, and . . . and you're _smiling_! You smiled all morning! Without a break!"

"Ah'm not smilin' now."

"What did he _say_? What did he _do?_ You have _got_ to tell me."

"Yeah, Rogue, come _on_," Amara pleaded. "Just give us one little hint. He's _so_ gorgeous. I can't _believe_ I answered the door with my mouth full of toothpaste!"

"Scott's not happy," Roberto observed. "I didn't think he had anything against Gambit—other than his working for Magento and kidnapping Rogue twice—"

"_Once_."

"But man, I thought they were going to have it out right there."

"So are you in love with him, or what?" asked the ever-bewildered Jamie.

"Please, Rogue!" Amara begged.

"That's it." Rogue undid her seatbelt and slipped her bag over her head and shoulder. "Ah'm flyin' tuh school."

"You're not allowed!" Jamie accused.

"Then Ah'll walk!"

In the front seat, Kurt sighed. "Come on, Rogue. I'll take you." He reached a hand behind his head. Rogue gratefully grabbed it, and the two siblings vanished in a puff of sulfuric smoke.

They reappeared in the alley across the street from school where they sometimes had to cut through when the parking lot was full. Rogue sighed. "Thanks, Kurt. I owe yeh."

"Forget about it. You shouldn't have to put up vith all that from them." He paused for a second, then plowed recklessly onward. "But about Gambit . . . vhat _is _going on vith you?"

"Kurt!!" Rogue cried, incensed.

"Sorry! I didn't mean it like that!" Kurt held his hands up in a gesture of surrender, fingers spread. "It's none of my business, I know. I'm just vorried. Ve don't know him, Rogue. He's not von of us. And if he valks out on the team . . . vell, that's fine, that's happened before, it doesn't matter. But I've never seen you like this about a guy. If he valks out on _you_—"

"Why should he walk out on me?" Rogue demanded, her face flushed with anger under her makeup. "What makes you think he's gonna do that? It is mah powers, huh? Or mah history? Or just 'cause Ah ain't some runway model lahk stupid _Jean_?"

"_Nein!" _Kurt grabbed both her hands and squeezed them tightly, trying to squeeze enough to pass comfort and reassurance through the fabric of her gloves. "I vorry because you are _meine schwester_. You are my family. I want you to always be safe."

Rogue's anger faded away in one long sigh. "Ah know, Kurt. Don't mind me snappin'. Ah'm worried, too. Worried, heck . . . Ah'm _scared_. Ah can't believe how happy Ah am that he's back. Ah cain't believe he's real. And Ah don't know how long any of this is gonna last. Ah'm so scared Ah cain't hardly breathe."

Kurt hugged her, and Rogue willingly allowed herself to be hugged. "Don't vorry," he insisted. "Vhatever happens, it will be okay. And I'm alvays here if you need me."

* * *

I didn't realize it until just now, but this is quite a French-heavy chapter. Sorry about that. 

_Quel manque de foi: _Roughly, "O ye of little faith."

_Laisse tomber_: let it fall; drop it; forget about it.

_Desolé_: Sorry.

_Eh bien_: Oh, well; well, then.

_C'est pas moi, ça_: That's not me.

_D'accord_: I agree; okay.

_Quoi_? What?

_Bon_: Good.

_Mes amis_: My friends.

_Mien schwester_: My sister, in German. (And I may have put the wrong article on this or something; German is not a language that I actually speak, so to all you German-speakers out there, I apologize.)


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

* * *

Once the students were all on their way, either to Bayville High or to the University of New York-Bayville, Gambit returned to Xavier's office where the Professor was waiting for him. 

"I have a few questions for you regarding your registration at Bayville High," said Xavier, gesturing to a number of half-completed forms on his desk. "What name shall I give?"

"Y'ain't gonna give my real name?"

"You asked that I not reveal any information about you without your express permission. If you'd like to register under your real name, you may. If you'd like to use your sobriquet, that can be arranged as well."

"Dat'd probably be best."

"Very well." Xavier clicked a pen open and applied himself to the forms, reading as he wrote. "Name, Gambit. Age . . ."

"Let's say eighteen."

"Age, eighteen. Place of birth, none. Address, Xavier Institute, 1407 Greymalkin Lane, Bayville, New York. Former address, none. Former school, none."

"De school board must love you."

"They do find our paperwork to be a bit annoying at times." He closed the pen and set it down. "One other question I'd like to ask. What would you like to do about your eyes?"

"What're my options?"

"If you wish to conceal them, you have a number of choices. I can provide you with an image inducer, like Kurt's. Or, like Scott, you can use sunglasses. There are also contact lenses and other alternatives. But I must warn you that the nature of this school is, by now, public knowledge. It will be assumed that you are a mutant, whether your mutation is visible or not."

"And den what?"

"And then, unfortunately, there may be some among your fellow students who will attempt to make your life difficult."

Gambit laughed. "Wonder what it'll be like to have a difficult life? De eyes stay. Too much trouble to cover 'em up."

"Very well. I will have these papers processed, and in the meantime, you can go with Storm."

Storm was waiting in the doorway. Gambit stood up and followed her out into the hall.

"We must obtain some clothes for you," she told him. "Unless you have luggage still on the way, of course."

"Can't just steal Scott's clothes again?" Gambit asked. He'd meant it as a joke, but the chastising glare Storm bestowed upon him said plainly that she did not take it as such.

"The Professor has set aside a very generous amount for your use. I trust that will be an acceptable alternative to taking Scott's possessions."

She led him out to the garage. Gambit recognized Logan's enviable motorcycle and pressed his fingernails into the heels of his hands to suppress the temptation to dive at the engine and examine it more closely.

Storm climbed into the driver's seat of Jean's SUV, and Gambit took the passenger's seat. As she started the engine, Gambit commented, "You're a funny one to be all fussed by a joke like dat."

"In context, it was inappropriate."

"Maybe it was. But you've a t'ief, or I'm blind."

Storm didn't answer until she'd driven through the gates of the Institute grounds. Then she began to talk, easily and casually, never taking her eyes off the road in front of her.

"I grew up picking pockets on the streets of Cairo. I would probably still be there if not for Professor Xavier. He caught me taking his wallet, and instead of turning me over to the police, he purchased my freedom from my master, brought me to the United States, and found me a home with a good family. When my powers manifested, he was the one who taught me how to control them by harnessing my emotions."

"So when was de last time you t'ieved?"

"Many years ago."

"I'd say y'still got de moves."

"Thank you."

"So to return to de original point: you've t'ieved. So why so sensitive to a harmless joke?"

"In the first place, because others of the X-Men will not see it as harmless. Breaking the law is nothing to joke about with those who have never had to do it. And in the second place, because that chapter of my life is closed. I have no wish to revisit it."

"Because you feel guilty."

"No. I feel no remorse for what I did to preserve my own life. But I do feel sorrow that I must live in a world where even children may be driven to such extremes in order to survive."

"Is dat why yo'here, wid de X-Men? To change de world?"

Storm smiled. "I am here because this is my home. But if we can change the world for the better, I will be very glad."

* * *

At the mall, Storm stood back and allowed Gambit to choose whatever clothes and supplies he wanted. She watched him carefully as he browsed through the wares on display, partly to see that he kept his promise to Professor Xavier and partly to learn about what kind of person he was. 

He knew what it was to be on the run. She saw it in the clothes he picked out. They were all quality pieces, but none were flashy. He chose solid-colored shirts in muted tones—gray, navy, burgundy—that would be good camouflage in the dark and that would keep him warm in bad weather. And he chose a messenger bag, instead of a backpack: easier to keep an eye on, especially in crowds, and harder to steal things out of. He chose a couple of sweaters, but no jacket that would serve as a replacement for his very distinctive coat. Storm quietly paid for it all.

Once they were back at the mansion, Storm gave him an extra house key and instructions on how to run (and shut off) the Danger Room, then left him to his own explorations and went to consult with Logan.

Logan was flat on his back in the garage, his legs sticking out from under the Professor's Bentley, fulfilling his self-appointed duties as X-Mechanic. Though Storm walked more softly than any other member of the household, he still heard her coming and rolled himself out to where he could look up at her. "Yeah?"

Storm sat cross-legged on the garage floor next to him. "I wish to know your opinion of our newest recruit."

"Yeah, Chuck told me the Cajun was moving in." Logan grabbed a rag, which had once been one of his t-shirts, and wiped the sheen of black oil off his hands. "Rogue seems excited."

"She does indeed."

"That could be a problem."

"I agree. We have little enough reason to trust him, yet I find myself liking him nonetheless. I am not sure if this is because he is a worthy person or simply because he is charismatic. I thought that your opinion on the matter might be useful. You were never one to be persuaded by charm alone."

Logan sighed and leaned against the side of the car, one knee pulled up to his chest. "There are lots of kids I'd rather have joining the X-Men," he told her, still rubbing absentmindedly at the oil in his knuckles. "He's a mercenary, and mercenary thinking doesn't turn off in a second. He's smooth enough, he could be working for anybody. But if Jean and the Professor don't pick up on that, then what are psychics good for?"

Storm smiled.

"But he did bring my bike back. That ain't nothin'. He brought Rogue back, and that ain't nothin', either. And Rogue trusts him. Not something she does these days without thinking long and hard about it."

"But she _is_ a seventeen-year-old girl, and he's a very handsome young man."

"She's a seventeen-year-old girl who's been stabbed in the back by her guardian, her mother, her best friend, her powers, _and_ Gambit. Five times bitten."

"Ten times shy," Storm agreed. "Perhaps in this instance I may trust her judgment."

"Well, I guess we'll all just have to wait and see. But if he hurts Rogue, I'll—"

"If he hurts Rogue," Storm interrupted, "I will strike him down long before you can come anywhere near him." She smiled a soft, melancholy smile that let Logan know how very serious she was.

* * *

_He's gonna be gone by the time Ah get home. Ah just know it._

Rogue manifested her worry by being brusquer and more withdrawn than usual, so much so that by fifth period Kitty was avoiding her until her mood improved. She paid hardly any attention at all in class, except to smart off to her English teacher when asked if she'd even glanced at _Crime and Punishment_.

She was at the van almost as soon as class got out, only to wait fifteen minutes for Kurt to finish talking with Amanda. Rogue had nothing against Amanda, but by the time Kurt climbed into the van, grinning like a moron and absolutely unapologetic, Rogue could have killed her. Gambit was going to be gone without one word of goodbye. And what if he broke into her room and took the photograph before he went? What if he took the shoes? What if he took the Queen of Hearts?

Jerk.

Rogue was the first one through the door when they arrived back at the mansion. If he was gone, she wanted the shock of it to be over with quickly.

But he wasn't gone. He was standing in the hall waiting for her, wearing a gray turtleneck and blue jeans, his hair considerably cleaner than it had been when he arrived. And he was smiling.

"You're still here," Rogue observed, and though she meant to sound offhand she couldn't quite manage it.

"Y'always surprised when I do what I say I'm gonna do." He took her hand and pulled her to where he could fit an arm around her waist. "Why is dat?"

"It's cuz you're a lyin' son of a seacook, that's why," said Rogue. She was smiling again.

"Fair enough." He took one of the white streaks of her hair between his fingers and gave it a playful tug. "Y'have a good school?"

"Lousy. You have a good shopping?"

"Not bad. Payin' for t'ings kinda takes de fun out of it."

"Creep."

"Heh."

"Come on." Rogue tugged on his sleeve. "Scott and Jean get home in twenty minutes. Snack time."

"Cheesecake?" said Remy hopefully.

"Ah can't make cheesecake in twenty minutes."

"Betcha can't make it at all."

"Bet me how much?"

"Ha. Nice try. If we bettin', we bettin' on cards."

"Like Ah'm playin' cards with you ever again."

"Too bad. You were gettin' good."

"You lyin' tuh me?"

"Won't find out till y'play. What's to eat?"

They wandered into the kitchen, still bantering, Gambit with his hand still on the small of Rogue's back. Rogue didn't even think to glance back at her classmates, much less to be embarrassed by her behavior or Gambit's attention.

Kitty and Kurt stared after her.

"I think Rogue really likes him," Kitty observed at last.

"You sure that vas Rogue?" asked Kurt.

* * *

Scott killed the engine of his convertible and leaned his head back on the headrest. "Ugh. Training is going to be a nightmare." 

Jean took his hand and laced her fingers through his. "Calm down. It will be fine. You've been training this team since . . . well, since the team was you and me."

"Where did those days go?"

"Come on, Scott. You know how to do this. And if Gambit gives you trouble, you know the rest of the team will be on your side. They trust you. You've never steered them wrong."

"Except for those times when I have."

"Oh, I'm sure nobody remembers those." Jean reached for his glasses. "Keep your eyes shut."

Scott did as he was told. Jean leaned over and gently kissed each eyelid, then the tip of his nose, then his mouth. Then she put his glasses back on him. "Feel better?"

Scott smiled his characteristic half-smile. "Can we just skip training and keep doing that for the rest of the afternoon?"

Jean grinned. "See you in ten." She slipped out of the car and headed into the house to change.

* * *

Scott was the last member of the team to arrive at the rendezvous point at the edge of the lawn. All of the students, plus Beast and Storm, were waiting for him. 

Gambit was at the edge of the group, still next to Rogue. He was in one of the standard-issue dark gray uniforms, but wore his coat over it. He was watching Scott with a faint air of amusement, as if he were expecting the training to turn out very funny indeed.

Scott didn't look at him, or point out that a long coat was a bad idea in a combat situation. Instead, he addressed the rest of the team. "Okay, guys. Obstacle course runs. We're dividing into airborne and ground teams. Storm, Beast, Cannonball, Sunspot, Nightcrawler, and Rogue, your limit is the canopy. Don't go above or below the branches of the trees. Multiple, Shadowcat, Berzerker, Iceman, Magma, Jean, and Gambit, you've got the ground run. There's a target three-quarters of a mile due east, and another one mile south of that. The third target is back here. You're going for fastest time and lowest injury rate."

"Are there walls?" Kitty asked.

"There may be walls."

"How many walls _may_ there be?"

"There may be four walls."

"Last time you told me that, there were five walls."

Scott tried very hard to look stern while a smile was fighting to escape onto his face. "I am telling you that there may be four walls." He checked his wristwatch. "Clock starts in ten. Take your marks."

"Good luck," Rogue told Gambit. She lifted off the ground and disappeared into the thick cover, followed by Storm, Sunspot, and Cannonball. Beast climbed after them. Kurt simply vanished. The ground team lined up.

"Go!" Scott yelled. They went.

* * *

Five minutes into the run, Gambit understood why the X-Men were such formidable combat opponents. Their training regimen was nothing to joke about. 

Whoever had designed the obstacles knew each team member as well as they knew themselves. As Gambit dodged laser cannons and jumped hidden pits and snares, he saw a barrage of training projectiles, about the size of tennis balls, pummel at Jamie. Multiple split to dodge each one, then stood in a dazed crowd, unable to efficiently control so many bodies at once. Kitty Pride ran confidently through four steel walls that popped up out of the ground, then gave a shout of laughter as she phased through a fifth, only to run smack into wall number six and crumple to the ground with a moan. Bobby had to deal with flame throwers, Amara with fire hoses. Gambit could see nothing of what was happening in the canopy above his head, but about a hundred yards from the first marker he saw Nightcrawler plummet to the ground. He vanished about a foot from impact, and a low-hanging branch shuddered as he landed on it.

Compared to the X-Men, Gambit's route was relatively easy. He was able to dodge around most of the obstacles that were giving the rest of the ground team so much trouble, though the thick undergrowth in the woody patch hindered his movement. The new uniform protected most of his body from the branches and bushes, but didn't stop them from tripping him up. Halfway between the first and second markers, he came up against a wall of bracken-filled netting and fallen logs that would require either a lot of climbing or a lot of explosive. Rather than risk either of these (he wasn't sure what kind of safety protocols they had against forest fire, though with Magma and Sunspot in residence there had to be _something_), he decided to try vaulting it. And despite the fact that his staff was not made for pole-vaulting, and the fact that he was jumping blind, he landed unhurt on flat ground. Gambit chalked it up to being one lucky scumbag, collapsed his staff, and ran on.

He made it back to the starting point before any of the ground team. Only Cannonball, Nightcrawler, and Rogue arrived faster.

Rogue was on the ground, leaning on her knees and panting. She raised her head when she heard him approach and asked, "You all right?"

Gambit nodded. "You?"

"Just about got a branch in the eye, but Ah'm okay."

"New personal best, Rogue," Cyclops told her. "You shaved five seconds off your time."

Rogue grinned. "Smashed up your little strobe-light thingy, too."

"That was designed to make you rely on your other senses," said Scott, somewhat impatiently.

"Ah did. Ah used them to find out where it was, and then Ah smashed it."

"_Laisse tomber, chère_," Gambit advised. "Just 'cause he has to work blind, he wants everyone else t'have to."

Scott opened his mouth to say something to this, thought better of it, and closed his mouth again. Rogue glared daggers at Gambit, and for once his cheeky smile did not melt her scowl.

"Ah'll do it right next time, Scott," Rogue promised. "But it'll bring mah time up again."

"That's all right. The skills are more important than the time."

Beast chose that moment to swing out of the trees and land with a decisive thud in the middle of the group. "What's my time?"

Scott checked the PDA in his hand. "Fourteen seconds slow."

"Thrice blast," said Beast cheerfully. "I've become flabby and indolent over the summer."

One by one, the rest of the team members reached the end of the run. Beast took those with cuts or bruises down to the infirmary, Jean took a few of the gray-uniformed Recruits to work in the flight simulator, and the rest of them were free to shower and change.

"Hey, Gambit!" Cyclops called as Gambit turned back toward the house. "Good run today."

Gambit grinned. "I got a feeling it ain't gonna be so easy for me tomorrow." He turned his back on Cyclops, slipped an arm around Rogue's waist, and walked off.

"Why are you such a jerk?" Rogue demanded as soon as they were out of earshot.

"_Qui? Moi?"_

"You don't make cracks about Scott's eyes. He's embarrassed enough about them as it is."

"So de boy gotta wear designer sunglasses every day of his life. _Tant pis_." He took her hand by the wrist and held it up in front of her face. "Are you, Rogue, tellin' me we should all feel so sorry fo'him 'cause he can't show his eyes?"

Rogue pulled her hand back. "Just because mah power's worse doesn't mean his is any better. And you don't feel _sorry_ for him. Y'just don't make cracks. We all get enough of that at school without doin' it to each other."

"'F he cain't take it, he shouldn't be leadin'."

"Oh, he can take it. He can take your butt all the way to the Danger Room and kick it out into the pool, that's where he'll take it."

"Didn'work so good last time he tried." Gambit indulged in a private grin at the memory of Scott's confused, infuriated face as he landed on the training mat.

"Scott's mah friend. He's been mah friend since before I joined the X-Men, when Ah didn't have _anybody_ else. He's a good guy and he's a good leader, and you don't have to smartmouth at him to prove you're tough."

"It ain't about proving _I'm_ tough, _chère_. I know dat. But I don't take orders from anyone less'n dey tougher dan me."

"Like you're picky. You worked for Magneto."

"An' Magneto was tough. Gave good perks, too."

"Do Ah wanna know?"

Gambit pulled his staff from his pocket and tossed it idly into the air. "Weighs nothin', six inches long, hits like old-growth oak. Complements of de boss."

Rogue eyed it with distrust. "If someone like Magneto gave me anything, I'd toss it as fast as I could."

"Which is why I have a shiny staff and you don't."

"But aren't you, lahk, embarrassed? Doesn't it just remind you of all the bad stuff you did?"

He gave her a long look out of the corner of his eye. "Why can you fly?"

Rogue blushed and looked down at her boots. "I dunno."

"Doesn't flyin' remind you of everything Mystique put you through?"

"Mystique's in jail, and mah powers belong to _me_."

"Magneto's dead," Gambit answered, "an' everything I have is my own, no matter where it come from."

Rogue nodded, conceding his point. She couldn't quite remember now why she'd been mad at him, and before she could remember, Gambit asked, "So why you got a uniform that's different from everybody else?"

"We all used to get our own, before the younger kids showed up. Then it wasn't worth the trouble of drawing up a different uniform for everybody."

"Well, it's worth de trouble now. Show me."

* * *

Scott, Jean, and Logan stood in the observation deck of the Danger Room, watching the video footage of that day's training session. 

"I think Bobby's favoring his left foot," Jean observed, pointing to the screen. "I should ask Hank to check him out."

"I think he just needs new boots," said Scott. "He grew about two inches during the summer. His whole uniform's a little tight on him now. You just can't see it under the ice-up."

"They're all growing like weeds," said Logan, scowling at the screen as though the students' growth was something done deliberately to annoy him.

"I'll just go through everybody and take new measurements," Jean decided. "It'll save on shipping if we can order new uniforms all at once."

"Good idea," agreed Scott.

Jean scribbled a note to herself in the margin of the notebook that was hovering in front of her. As she clicked the pen closed, she observed, "So Gambit didn't eat you."

"Not today," Scott qualified. "He was feeling us out. I still think he's going to be trouble."

"He can be if he wants to," said Logan. He was the one holding the remote control, and used it to switch to another camera feed and back up a few minutes to where Gambit was dodging, and then destroying, a series of laser tag-cannons. "Take a look. Good speed, good balance, good reflexes, lotsa firepower. He's one tough kid."

"I can take him," said Scott, sounding a little defensive. "Now that I know what to watch out for."

"He's one of us now," Jean reminded him. "You're not going to _take him_."

"But if I have to—"

"Keep thinking like that and you _will_ have to. If he thinks you don't trust him, he'll be on alert for you to try to hurt him."

Scott sighed. "Well, you're the psychic."

"In a manner of speaking," said Jean.

Logan turned away from the screen to eye her. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Jean shrugged, an apologetic smile sneaking onto her face. "Gambit's a telepathic dead zone, a black hole. It must be part of his powers. I can't read a thing off him."

Scott stared at her, his face strangely blank. "And you didn't mention this."

"I thought you might get upset."

"You thought I might get upset."

"Yes."

"And why would you think that?"

Jean, though still smiling, had the tact to wince a little and look slightly ashamed of herself. "I can't imagine."

"So just to clarify, here . . . we have, living in our house, a former Acolyte and kidnapper. And we are letting him live here because . . . and only because . . . he _says_ he will behave himself."

"And because Rogue likes him."

"Oh, because Rogue likes him. Okay, then. I feel loads better."

"It's called trust, Scott."

"He hasn't earned it."

"He might."

"You like him," Logan accused.

Jean turned and looked at him, half grinning and half glaring. "I'm willing to give him a chance. It's not _his_ fault he's so gorgeous." She glanced back at Scott, took in the horrified expression on his face, and cracked up laughing. "I'm kidding! I'm just kidding, Scott. My gosh, take a deep breath."

"It's not funny, Red," Logan chided. "The guy's dangerous."

Jean let her smile fade. "Maybe. But he's also lonely."

"You said you couldn't read him," Scott accused. "How can you be sure?"

"I can see it. In his face. In his eyes. Can't you?"

Scott's mouth compressed into a thin, worried line. "I'm not sure what I see yet."

* * *

_Qui? Moi?:_ Who? Me? 

_Tant pis_: Too bad, so sad; sucks to be him.

And many thanks to Sirikit for the touchups on my German grammar. I'll be cleaning it up shortly.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

* * *

"So have you _ever_ been to school?" Rogue asked, hitching her bag up on her shoulder as she and Gambit walked across the lawn to the front doors of Bayville High.

"Sure. Lotsa times."

"Ah mean, to go to class. Not to spy on us."

"Oh. In dat case, no."

"But you _do_ know stuff, right? Like . . . math, and geography, and . . . well, French, Ah guess . . ."

"I know stuff."

"What kinda stuff?"

"Stuff stuff."

Rogue sighed. "Well, Ah hope you know the stuff that happens in the first three chapters of _Crime and Punishment_, 'cuz Ah sure don't."

"Wid a name like dat, I'm guessin' nothin' good."

Rogue gave him a glance-over, worry painted all over her face, debating whether he looked normal enough to stay out of trouble. He was wearing another turtleneck and blue jeans, with his coat over them, unwilling to part with his staff and cards even for the course of a school day. His eyes blazed blatantly and unashamedly red. No one was going to overlook him as just another ordinary human; he looked more mutant than any of the X-Men. But other than that, he was pretty normal. Well-dressed. Cool. Maybe they'd all get through this day.

Maneuvering carefully through the crowded halls, Rogue and Gambit made their way towards the main office so Gambit could pick up his schedule and locker assignment. They attracted a lot of attention. Rogue slouched and curled in on herself as far as she could go, trying to avoid the stares of people who'd stopped bothering to look at her long ago. Rogue was just a weird goth kid, too standoffish to be liked, too expensively dressed to be bothered with otherwise, and she'd become all but invisible to the other students. But Gambit was an attention-getter, and suddenly all the curious, unwelcome gazes were back. Rogue began to wish she'd worn a turtleneck, too, instead of her purple off-the-shoulder. It felt like their eyes were burning her.

"What in the . . ."

Rogue turned and put her hand on her hip, the picture of attitude-heavy snideness. "Whadda_you_ want, Lance?"

The Brotherhood, when they bothered to be in school, tended to move in a pack. Rogue was therefore confronted with Blob, Toad, Pietro, Wanda, and Lance all at once, all of them staring in undisguised astonishment at her new companion.

Gambit stepped forward, grinning. "Long time, _mes amis_. How's t'ings?"

"Gambit?" demanded Lance. "What are you doing here?"

"Public school, ain't it? I made some friends in de neighborhood, thought I'd settle in for a spell."

"Heh," Toad snickered, sounding tough even though he was safely tucked behind Lance's knees, "He went and joined the geek squad!"

Gambit shot Toad a knowing look and waved to him. At least, Rogue thought it was a wave at first. Then she realized what he was doing: displaying the palm of his hand. Toad obviously knew what he could do with that palm, because he swallowed once, very loudly, and in two quick hops had switched from sheltering behind Lance to sheltering behind Blob.

"I don't care who he's signed up with," said Lance, glaring at the threatening hand. "You just stay out of our business. You've caused the Brotherhood enough trouble."

"Well, I'm sure there won't be any further unpleasantness 'tween your people and mine," said Gambit, with menacing politeness and an unsettling smile. "Long as dere is an understanding between us, you got not'in' t'fear from me." He nodded briefly at Wanda, who was standing a little apart from the boys with her arms folded across her chest. "_Mam'selle._"

Wanda looked him up and down, and an approving smile started to sneak its way onto her face.

A shot of some unpleasant, burning emotion went tearing through Rogue's body. Before she quite knew what she was doing, she'd grabbed Gambit's arm and given a sharp tug. "C'mon, we're gonna be late."

Grinning his own mischievous grin, Gambit allowed himself to be pulled. Rogue shot Wanda a narrow glare over her shoulder as the crowd separated them.

"What did you _do_to them?" she demanded as soon as the Brotherhood was out of earshot.

"My job. Magneto wanted 'em in line, so dat's where I put 'em."

Rogue stopped walking and stared at him. "You put the Brotherhood in line."

"_Ouais_."

"You did."

"_Ouais_."

"The Brotherhood couldn't find the line if it stuck itself up their noses."

Gambit just grinned, looking pleased with himself.

Rogue hmphed. "Never mind. Just come on."

Due to long hours of agility training, they reached the office in plenty of time to get all the paperwork they needed. The school secretary glared suspiciously at Gambit's eyes and at his dubious paperwork, but since his records had all the necessary signatures there wasn't anything she could do about him.

Gambit accepted his schedule and locker number, thanked her politely, and started to walk away.

"Hold on!" she snapped. "You'll need your locker combination."

Gambit turned back and stared at her.

"Because yeh can't get your locker open without the combination," Rogue reminded him.

"Oh. Yeah."

While the secretary consulted a locker-combination spreadsheet, Rogue hissed through her teeth, "Showoff."

"What?" Gambit whispered back. "I forgot."

"My eye you did."

The combination being obtained, Gambit dropped his bag in the locker and followed Rogue to the dreaded English class, which they shared with Kurt and Amanda.

Amanda already knew about Gambit; Kurt kept her up-to-speed on all the happenings in the Institute. She was also very hard to surprise. She shook Gambit's hand with a smile and a cheerful "Nice to meet you," with Gambit returned with equal politeness. The four of them sat together in the front corner of the room furthest from the door, where no one else wanted to sit, ensuring themselves some space to minimize contact and conflict with the other students.

At least, that was the strategy.

"Who's your new freak friend, freak squad?" inquired Alex Matthews, almost as soon as he entered the room. Three of the girls from the cheerleading squad were following behind him, and all three burst into giggles at this display of razor-sharp wit.

Rogue's hands clenched into fists on the surface of her desk.

Gambit turned in his chair and gave Alex a look that was quite as rude, and much cooler, than the look Alex was giving him.

"Nice _eyes_," said one of the cheerleaders.

"T'anks. I like 'em,"

"Can you even _see_ out of those things?" asked Alex.

"Well, let's find out." He turned his attention to Rogue. "Rogue, you see a wannabe hotshot who t'inks he got muscle trying to play he's tough by tradin' words wid some mutants who could take his head off easier dan openin' a Coke?"

Rogue felt herself start to smile. "Yep." Her fists relaxed.

"Guess I see just fine, den," said Gambit, turning back to Alex.

Alex's smug smile twisted into a scowl. "Just try it, mutie. First I'd kick your butt, and then you, and all the rest of your freak pals, would get locked up for lab rats."

"Speakin' of being locked up," put in Rogue, "how's your brother doing? The one in prison? Jean keeps waitin' for a letter or something from him, so she and Scott can laugh about it. You remember Scott? Her _new_ boyfriend?"

"Ouch," said Gambit approvingly.

"Thanks," said Rogue.

The bell rang before Alex had a chance to think up a good retort, though the bewildered, infuriated expression on his face suggested that a good retort wasn't something he had off the top of his head. Fuming, he sat down, the distraught cheerleaders following in his wake.

Gambit rested his elbow on the back of his chair, stuck his long legs out in front of him, crossed his ankles, and smirked.

Kurt and Amanda were staring at him. Amanda's mouth was half open in surprise and half raised into a smile.

Kurt reached across the isle to Gambit's desk and shook his hand. "Welcome to Bayville High."

* * *

When the lunch bell rang, the X-Men met up in the courtyard, where they found Bobby, Ray, and Roberto pulling over another table to double the size of their usual spot.

"Good idea, guys," said Rogue approvingly. "It was gettin' pretty crowded anyway." Everyone else hurried to help them move the heavy piece of furniture, but Rogue hung back.

"Ain't you gonna help?" Gambit inquired.

Rogue shook her head. "Ah can't. Not at school."

Even without her assistance, the tables were soon arranged and everyone settled in. Lunch was less strained than Gambit's previous meals with the X-Men had been; everyone seemed to have decided to give him the benefit of the doubt, and were neither paying him any particular attention nor deliberately ignoring him. Kitty, who'd brought Oreos to share, even gave him one.

Amara was the first to attempt to bring him into the conversation. "So how's your first day going, Gambit?"

"Little strange," he admitted, "but okay."

"It gets easier," she assured him.

"It takes guts to go into this without . . . y'know . . . something," said Kurt, indicating the general area of his eyes. "Something to hide vith."

"Thought de whole point a' public school for you guys was to _not_ be hidin'."

"That is the idea," said Kitty. "And we try our best. But it's tough to be a mutie every single day. We're okay, though. Just try to stay out of their way and they should get bored with you eventually."

"Who?"

"Everybody."

Gambit remembered what Spyke and Callisto had said, and was silent.

Rogue was the first to finish her food and stand up from the table. "Be right back."

"I'll go with you," said Kitty immediately. The two girls picked up their trays and walked together towards the cafeteria, where the trash cans were.

"Why do they go together?" Gambit asked Kurt.

"People leave us alone if we're in groups," Kurt explained. "Most of the time, at least. There are still jerks."

Gambit nodded. He knew the numbers game; the Thieves and the Rippers played that way back in New Orleans. The difference there was that the two guilds had been nearly even in numbers. Here, the X-Men were outnumbered fifty to one.

"It's okay," Kurt insisted. "You just gotta know how to keep your head down, zat's all. Like, don't get too bad of grades."

"Or too good of grades," added Bobby. "Kitty almost got expelled for cheating before she started throwing questions on her science tests."

"B plus is about right," Roberto advised. "And if you were thinking about trying out for sports, don't. We aren't allowed. Before her cover was blown, Jean had just about every sports record a girl could have in this school, but when the school board found out she was a mutant, she got kicked off all her teams and all her awards were revoked."

"Cause she was cheatin?"

"Come on; you've met Jean. I don't think she's even _heard_ of cheating."

"They still make her tests in isolation at the university," Amara informed everyone.

"Really?" asked Bobby, looking shocked. "Are you gonna finish those fries?"

Just then, a shriek sounded from the doorway to the cafeteria.

* * *

It was an accident . . . one of those tiny, stupid accidents that wouldn't have mattered at all to anybody but Rogue. As she and Kitty were leaving the cafeteria, four varsity-jacketed athletes were entering. Accustomed as they were to having the right of way, they pushed their way through the doorway. And one of them very nearly planted his hand on Rogue's bare shoulder.

She jumped back with a terrified, furious cry. "_DON'T TOUCH ME!_"

"What's your problem, freak?" he demanded. "Not the touchy-feely kind? Huh?" He put out both hands to shove her again, and she jumped back. "Got_issues_? Maybe your daddy touched you a little too much when—"

"You just back off me, slime!" Rogue blocked his advancing hands and retreated further.

"Leave her alone, Chris!" Kitty ordered. One of his friends shoved her into the wall, though thankfully Kitty had the presence of mind to keep from going through it.

Rogue's back hit the cafeteria wall. There was nowhere else to retreat. If he touched her, she'd hurt him . . . but if she tried to fight back, she could end up hurting him even more. She glanced upward. The wide, bare ceiling beckoned, where she'd be far out of anyone's reach. Flying in school would get her in more trouble than she cared to consider, but it looked like the only way to get out of this without landing him in the hospital.

Then a hand closed around his throat.

"Where I come from, when a lady says 'don't touch me,' it generally means 'don't touch me,'" Gambit announced. His free hand was planted squarely on the "B" on the back of Chris's jacket, keeping him from squirming out of the hold. "Yankees ain't got no manners."

One of the other jocks moved to tackle him, and Gambit swung around so that he could use Chris as a human shield. "Now I b'live y'owe my friend an apology." The hand on his throat squeezed a little tighter.

From behind the jocks, Kurt, Amara, Bobby, Roberto, and the other X-Men shoved their way into the cafeteria to back up Gambit, Rogue, and Kitty. Outnumbered two to one, the jocks suddenly looked less inclined to tackle Gambit.

"Gambit, let him go," Rogue ordered. "It's okay, really. Ah'm fine. We're gonna get in trouble."

Gambit obediently released his hold on Chris, who stumbled away, gagging and massaging his throat, his face red with oxygen deficit and anger. But before anyone could flee the scene, a new voice roared through the room.

"Hold it right there!"

"Baker," Kurt whispered. "Oh, man."

And that was how Rogue and Gambit ended up in the principal's office on Gambit's very first day.

* * *

"I don't know if Professor Xavier made it clear to you," said Principal Kelly, his voice taut with anger, "but mutants are allowed to attend this school only on the condition that they not use their powers here."

"I didn'use my powers," Gambit informed him.

"Then do you want to explain how you put the captain of our wrestling team in a choke hold?"

"Must be explained by de fact dat y'all have a pretty poor wrestling team, sir."

"What are your_ powers_, exactly?"

"I'm a biokinetic."

"And what does that mean?"

"Means not'in', since I don't use my powers at school."

Kelly seethed, but couldn't think of an adequate response to this. "Because this is a first offense, I'll be lenient this time. I will be informing Professor Xavier of this little altercation, and I will be watching you very closely from now on. But consider yourself warned: mutants are not allowed to harass people in this school. And as for you, Miss Rogue, I had hoped that the summer might have cured you of your excessive attitude problems. I see that this is not the case. Your provoking and belligerent behavior is not acceptable in a learning environment. Two hours of detention, today after school."

Rogue was slouched in her chair with her arms folded, glaring at the wall.

"Did you hear me, Rogue?"

"Yes, _sir_."

"All right, then. You two are dismissed."

Rogue and Gambit left the office.

Kurt was waiting for them outside. "Vhat happened?" he demanded, concern written all over his holographically-projected face.

"Gambit got a warning and Ah got detention," Rogue told him. Her fists were clenched so tightly that her fingernails were threatening to cut through her gloves. "The stupid, scumbag, evil _jerks!_" She raised her foot to kick the wall, thought better of it, and set the foot back down with a sigh. "Better get to class, Kurt. The Institute's in enough trouble for one day."

"Ze professor won't care," Kurt assured her. "He knows zis wasn't our fault. Baker and Kelly have it in for us, and Chris MacConkie is just _stupid_. We didn't use our powers, and nobody got hurt. That's all that matters."

Rogue sighed and nodded. She raised her head to look at Gambit. "Thanks for stickin' up for me."

"Sorry I didn't let go of him before de teacher saw," said Gambit, an apologetic smile on his face.

"It was worth it to see his face turn red like that."

"Y'all just put up wid dis? Every day?"

Rogue shrugged. "None of it matters. They can name-call and give us detention all they want. We're better than them."

Gambit raised his eyebrows. "Y'soundin' like Magneto now."

"We're not better zan zem because we have powers," Kurt clarified. "It's because we don't treat people like scum."

"No one who treats people the way those guys treated us deserves to matter," Rogue echoed. "The meaner they are, the more worthless they get."

"And the stronger ve become." Kurt gripped her arm below the elbow. "I'll explain to Scott what happened. And we'll leave the SUV so you can drive home."

* * *

After training, Gambit sat on the front porch and waited for Rogue to come home. While he waited, he thought—about Spyke and Callisto, about Rogue and Kurt, about what they'd said, about what they believed. The X-Men had a hard life, and training in the Danger Room was the least of it.

After what seemed a very long time, the front gates swung open and Rogue maneuvered the SUV up the driveway and into its spot in the garage. He met her halfway between the parked car and the front door.

"Y'all right?" he asked, seeing the deep weariness on her face.

"Yeah, Ah'm okay." She leaned her head forward and rested it against his chest, sighing. "It's just so hard when it's not _fair_."

Gambit wrapped his arms around her back and pulled her tightly against him. Her agitated breathing slowed to match the rhythm of his.

'_Allons voler,__chère_," he murmured. "Don't none of it matter. Leave it all behind. _Allons voler_."

"What's that mean?"

"Let's go flyin'."

Rogue looked up at him, the ghost of a smile on her face. Then she slipped an arm around his back to hold him up, and the ground fell away under their feet.

The sky was wide and wonderful and silent.

They ended up on the coast, lying on a narrow stretch of beach below a massive cliff, inaccessible from land except by flight or a very ambitious climber. Gambit lay on his back in the sand with one hand tucked behind his head, Rogue nestled against his shoulder, his hand lying on her ribcage where he could feel her breathing.

She snuggled her face a bit more solidly into the fabric of his shirt and sighed. "Ah'm glad you're here, Remy."

He smiled down at her, feeling her tensed body relax into sleepy softness. "_Moi aussi, chère._"

* * *

Callisto of the Morlocks had a headache.

She wasn't sure why. It had been a quiet enough day. The sickness that had swept through their camp was finally dying down; they had food and water enough; it was still weeks before the colder weather set in. But still she had a headache. Maybe, in spite of all her precautions, she was getting sick, too.

She chose one of the tunnels that extended from their camp and went wandering out into the darkness. She knew the passages perfectly, and could wander them without light as easily as she could with it. The cooking fires made the camp uncomfortably hot sometimes; maybe that was what was bothering her.

She heard a movement in the darkness, and called out to it. "Spyke."

"Yeah?" She couldn't really see him, but didn't have to. Evan, restless, territorial, and fiercely protective, often spent his evenings wandering the tunnels in hopes of catching topsider intruders. It was a comfort to more than herself to know that he was standing guard.

"How's things?"

"All right. I'm getting a headache."

"Really? Me, too. Maybe we've got food poisoning again."

"Oh, goody," Evan deadpanned. She followed his voice until she could pick out his figure, leaning sullenly against the right-hand tunnel wall.

Callisto heard something rustle in the blackness off to her left. "Who's out here with you?"

"Nobody. Why?"

"I just heard somebody move."

Light flared; Evan had extended a spike from the palm of his hand and flamed the end, holding it up like a torch. In the circle of dim, wavering light, there was no one but the pair of them. "You sure? I don't see anyone."

"I'm sure." Callisto had long ago learned to trust her senses. She took a hesitant step into the darkness. "Gimme a staff."

A six-foot rod landed in her hand, not as sturdy as the length of pipe she'd left back at camp, but better than facing the unknown unarmed. She took a grip on it, shifted her weight forward, and stepped forward again. "Hello?"

"Good evening."

There was one brief, matter-of-fact _thud_, and the light went out.

* * *

_Ouais: _Yeah.

_Moi, aussi_: Me, too.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

* * *

Rogue and Jean were on dinner duty.

It was roast beef and mashed potatoes. Jean was peeling two potatoes with her mind and another with her hands, her tongue caught in her teeth as she tried to keep knives and peelers from flying everywhere. Rogue was dealing with the meat, her gloves stuffed into their pockets to keep them clean.

An explosion sounded from downstairs. Jean raised her head, all three peelers pausing in their work.

"Scott's making Gambit run target drills," Rogue explained.

"Oh." Jean returned her attention to the potatoes. "I guess I should be glad that's the only kind of explosion we've heard thus far."

"No kidding," agreed Rogue. She pulled the roast out of the oven, bare-handed, and jabbed a meat thermometer rather viciously into it. "Ah'm surprised they're both still alive after three weeks."

"Yeah. Scott's been a little testy."

"He's been a complete lunatic," Rogue snapped. "What is his problem? Gambit's been doing great. He keeps up with the team in training, he only got in trouble at school like four times—and none of them were his fault—and everybody else thinks he's awesome."

"Gambit's been going out of his way to make sure everyone else thinks he's awesome," Jean pointed out. She put down one of the telekinetic potatoes so she could talk and peel at the same time. "Haven't you noticed? He'll do anything to get along with anybody . . . except Scott. He talks motorcycles with Logan, speaks French with Hank, teases Kitty until her ears turn red, practical-jokes with Kurt . . . I don't know how we're ever going to get those mustard stains out of the carpet . . . and always calls Professor Xavier 'sir.' And he and Storm are getting along like childhood pals, although I'm still not quite sure why. But he's deliberately trying to drive Scott nuts."

"Scott's being a pain," Rogue insisted. "He's trying to treat Gambit like . . . like Jamie or Amara. Like a little kid. But Gambit's more grown up than anybody in the house. He kin handle himself. Scott just won't admit it."

Another explosion sounded from downstairs. This one was followed by raised voices.

"Here we go," sighed Jean. She dropped her potatoes, Rogue slammed the oven door shut and yanked on her gloves, and the two of them went tearing downstairs to keep the boys from killing each other.

"Why the heck did you turn the safeties off?"

"Why did _you _have 'em on?"

"I had them on so we wouldn't get killed!"

"If dey ain't no risk, den dey ain't no point. What you even running this thing for if y'ain't gonna keep de stakes high? Dey ain't shootin' paintball bullets out dere."

"This isn't about the _stakes_. This is about _you_ showing off. Again."

Jean slapped her hand against the door's control panel, and the Danger Room entrance hissed open.

Scott and Gambit stood squared off in the middle of the room, their target simulation paused around them. Neither one looked injured, though they both looked mad as hornets.

"What's the problem this time?" Jean demanded.

"Nobody dead, so nothin'," said Gambit, straightening up and dusting insult off his coat.

"Well, we're certainly all grateful for that," Jean deadpanned. "Okay, boys, training's over for today. Scott, can I talk to you?"

Scott crossed the room to her, pausing only briefly to glare over his shoulder at Gambit. "Next time you turn the safeties off without permission, you're out of the Danger Room for a month." He took Jean's arm and left the room.

Rogue turned on Gambit, her arms folded across her chest. "_What_ was that?"

"Just ticked 'cuz I outshot him."

"Liar."

Gambit nodded, acknowledging he'd been caught. It was no secret by now that Cyclops was the better shot of the two, and the stronger, though Gambit was faster and had greater versatility in his firepower. The two had butted heads too often and too publicly for their relative strengths to remain concealed. "Just ticked 'cause I broke his rules again. How's dat?"

"_Remy—_"

"Y'ain't any less mad when I tell de truth dan when I lie."

"Cause yeh keep doin' stupid stuff like this! I bet you didn't give Magneto half this crap."

"Magneto woulda kilt me."

"Ah'm about ready tuh kill you."

"But your prissy team commander ain't about ready to kill me."

"You want him to?"

"Better dan whining about me to his girlfriend. Why d'you even take orders from him? I don't get it."

"And yeh never will until you give it a shot." Rogue turned her back on him and headed for the door.

"And if—"

"Don't talk to me!"

Rogue was very annoyed that the pneumatic Danger Room door couldn't be slammed, so she kicked the opposite wall instead. The basement walls were the only ones in the house that could stand up to her kicking, as long as she didn't put too much enthusiasm in it. Then she went upstairs to find Scott.

She met Jean coming down. "He's sulking," Jean informed her. "And yours?"

"Like Ah care," answered Rogue. "Can you handle dinner for a minute?"

"Sure."

Rogue flew up the rest of the stairs, in too snarly a mood to bother with stepping on them, and whacked the door of Scott's bedroom with the flat of her hand. "You wearin' pants?"

After a brief pause, Scott answered. "No."

"Sucks to be you." Rogue opened the door, saw with relief that Scott had lied to her, and sat cross-legged in the middle of his bed.

"What do you want, Rogue?"

"Oh, you're mad at _me_, now? Fine. Forget Ah bothered."

Scott sighed. "Sorry." He picked his sunglasses up off his nightstand and turned to face the window. "Just a sec." With his eyes squeezed tightly shut, he pulled off his visor and replaced it with the sunglasses. When he was sure they were secure, he scrubbed a hand through his hair and sat down on the edge of his bed. "I didn't mean to snap at you."

"S'okay. Ah'm sorry Gambit's being a jerk. He's kinda like that."

"He's not your fault." Scott looked up at her, his familiar ironic half-smile back on his face. "And I really don't mind him so much. We've all had to deal with stuff before. But, Rogue . . . I don't feel like we can count on him. And you and he are so tight all of a sudden. I guess I'm just worried about you."

Rogue scowled and threw a pillow at him. "Ah am so sick of everybody bein' worried about me! Kurt gets to be, 'cuz he's mah brother. Logan gets to be 'cuz he's everybody's bodyguard. But _you_, Scott, don't get to worry about me. Ah'm not your problem. You get to worry about Jean, if Jean ever has any problems, which I doubt. You only get to worry about one girl in this house, an' you picked her, so there you go. End of story."

Scott stared at her. "What?"

Rogue rolled her eyes. "Forget it."

"No, wait. Hang on. I _picked_ Jean? Picked her for what?"

Rogue leaned back against the headboard, her arms folded across her chest.

"Because . . . Jean and I . . . wait a minute." Rogue could almost see the gears working frantically inside his stupid boy scull. "Rogue, you didn't . . . you didn't _like_ me, did you?"

Rogue was silent, but she looked down at her knees instead of glaring at him.

Scott combed his hand back through his hair, as though hoping to comb his thoughts into neat, orderly rows. "Oh, my gosh. Rogue, I had no idea. I'm . . . well, what do you say to that? I'm sorry? I'm sorry!"

Rogue gave a single "hmph" of dry laughter. "Sorry you're such a charmer?"

"I never, ever meant to hurt you. I am _so_ sorry. I wish I'd known, or . . . something."

"Ah didn't want you to know. You and Jean have a good thing together. Ah didn't want to mess that up."

"So why are you telling me now?"

Rogue shrugged. "Cuz now it doesn't matter so much. Ah used to hate seein' you guys together, 'cuz I'd feel so jealous and so lonely. But Ah never feel like that when Gambit's around. Ah'm _mad_ a lotta the time, but never lonely. Not lahk Ah used to be. But Ah've been yakkin' mah jaw off at him about what a great guy you are and how he aughta give you a chance, so Ah guess Ah aughta yak at you a little, too. So here goes. He's a good guy, Scott. He's brave and he keeps his promises. Ah know he doesn't quite fit in the kind of team you wish you had, but, y'know, neither did Ah, back in the day. But you trusted me and stood up for me anyway."

Scott snorted, now smiling again. "You saved Jean from Blob and me from Mystique. I kinda owed you."

"You owe Gambit, too."

Scott nodded. "Yes, I do." He reached across the bed and took her hand, squeezing it tightly with older-brother affection.

Rogue smiled. "So can you forgive me for liking Gambit and moving him into your house?"

"I guess so. If you can forgive me for liking Jean."

"Deal."

"But Gambit's not allowed to like Jean."

"And Jean's not allowed to like Gambit."

"Deal."

They shook on it, smiling, remembering that they had once been friends, and realizing that, despite living in the same house, they had been missing one another.

* * *

After dinner, Roberto decided to put in the movie his parents had sent him for his birthday. Most of those who had their homework done decided to join him. Kurt microwaved some popcorn and Jamie brought a case of sodas into the den. Gambit, being the first one to pick a seat, decided he needed a whole couch to sprawl across and in short order had Rogue arranged comfortably beside him, her back against his chest and his arm draped across her waist. Their argument of the afternoon seemed to be forgotten, as most of their arguments were after a couple of hours.

Scott claimed a place on the loveseat and soon found Jean snuggled under his arm, a fuzzy fleece blanket tucked telekinetally around them. Roberto started the movie, Amara hit the lights, and Kurt passed the popcorn.

"So . . . when we're busy, we're usually dealing with explosions," observed Kitty as the James Bond theme started to play. "And when we have down time, we spend it watching movies with explosions in them. Why?"

"Because they're _cool_," explained Bobby.

"Oh," said Kitty, rolling her eyes. "Right."

"Boys," griped Amara sympathetically.

"Nobody's making you watch it," Ray pointed out.

"You guys, shut up!" snapped Kurt.

Someone threw a pillow at him, but the chatter died down.

Scott laid his head against Jean's and whispered into her mind. _Did you know Rogue used to have a crush on me?_

Jean tipped her head up to look at him. _Yes._

_Why didn't you tell me?_

_It wasn't any of your business._

_Oh._ Somewhat put off by this answer, Scott fixed his eyes on the screen. Jean settled her head back onto his shoulder. He managed to pay attention to the movie for about forty-five seconds before his attention wandered to the two dark-red-haired southerners curled up together on the couch. Gambit had one ankle hooked over Rogue's, and the fingers of his gloved hand were woven through the fingers of hers.

_Jean?_

_Yeah?_

_Can you tell me what I'm feeling right now?_

_I'm a telepath, not an empath._

_Right. Okay._

_But if I were to guess, I'd say you were a little jealous._

_What?_

_Yeah. You used to be the only person in the house who could make Rogue smile. Now that's Gambit's job, and you're feeling jealous. It's nothing to be embarrassed about. It's understandable._

_I'm not jealous! I'm just . . . he's always touching her._

_I think we would have noticed if he'd touched her._

_Not like that. But haven't you noticed that if Rogue's in the same room, Gambit has to be touching her? She's never out of his reach. Sure, he's wearing gloves, so she doesn't hurt him, but still . . . she's got _no_ personal space. _

_She doesn't mind. Why should you? Gambit knows to be careful. And Rogue can rip his head off with one hand if he ever gets too fresh with her._

Scott shook his head. _I think he's gonna break her heart._

_When he does, you can be mad at him for it. Right now, he and Rogue make each other happy. Why don't you just let them have that? That kind of happiness is something Rogue might never have again._

_But he's a jerk._

_In all fairness, so is she sometimes._

Scott found himself with the popcorn bag in his hand. He offered it to Jean, who took a handful and began working on getting it all into her mouth.

_But how am I supposed to get him to work with the team?_

_He likes the team,_ said Jean with her mouth full._ Give him some space to let him work his own way, and he'll fit himself in. _

"Who got de popcorn?" Gambit enquired, raising his head from the arm of the couch to scan the darkened room.

Scott glanced into the bag. "Not much left. Just the little bits at the bottom."

Gambit reached up a hand. "_Passe-le_."

Scott rearranged Jean on his shoulder so he could throw freely with his opposite arm and tossed the paper bag to the other couch. Gambit caught it without jostling Rogue, and Scott heard the dud kernels start popping inside.

"Gambit, man," Kurt observed, "You're a useful guy to have around."

"Glad t'oblige." Gambit offered the popcorn to Rogue, then passed it along to Kurt.

Scott sighed and smiled a little. _Maybe we can make this work._

_Scott, your hip is poking me in the back. Move._

_Sorry.

* * *

_

Todd Tolansky had a headache. He also didn't know where he was or how he'd come to be there. It was possible he'd been too drunk to remember, but considering that he was too young to buy alcohol (despite many failed attempts to acquire some) this didn't seem likely. Dang.

He made a tentative overture to the darkness around him. "Hey, uh . . . hello?" His tongue felt fat and fuzzy inside his mouth, but it didn't seem to impede his ability to talk.

He tried moving, but found himself bound to the surface on which he lay. "Am I under arrest or something? Cause whatever it was, I didn't do it. I was with my guys the whole time. Ask them."

Light flared in his eyes, searing red spots across his vision. Toad winced. "Hey, cut it out with the brights, would ya?"

"All in good time," said another voice. "First, I would like you to tell me everything that you know about the students of the Xavier Institute."

Toad squinted, trying to make out who was addressing him. "Hey, for the right price, I'll tell you what they all have for breakfast every morning. What's it worth to you?"

"It's worth all the time and expense I put into capturing you."

"I was thinkin' more in terms of money. For me."

"I'm afraid I'm not willing to negotiate that."

Something emerged into the light: a hand, covered in a latex glove, holding a cotton swab. It drew a broad yellow circle on the inside of Toad's elbow.

Toad squirmed away, as much as he could within his restraints. "Hey! What's that for?"

"I need a blood sample from you. I didn't have time to take one while you were unconscious."

"Hey, no way, man. I don't do needles."

"It's a very small needle."

"Yeah, whatever." Toad closed his mouth and sucked, drawing out a mouthful of glue-like saliva from the extra glands inside his cheeks. Then he aimed for the voice and spat. At least, that was the plan. What ended up happening was that his own gray-green goo trickled down his chin and across his face, too thin to shoot far or adhere well. He tried lashing out with his tongue, but it wouldn't extend more than three or four inches out of his mouth. And when he aimed his most powerful kick at the bonds on his ankles, nothing happened.

"If you squirm, I'll miss the vein and have to do it again," warned the voice. The gloved hand returned, bearing a syringe.

"Hey! Hey, just . . . just get away from me with that thing, okay? I'll tell you anything you want to know, just don't stick me with nothin'."

The needle hand paused. "That seems fair." It retracted into the dark. "You may want to start talking, then."

"Talking," repeated Toad, struggling to get his breath back. "Okay. Talking. Here we go."

* * *

Kurt, Gambit, and Rogue all met up at Kitty's locker after second period. This was a usual tradition, partly because Kurt had lost his science textbook and had to borrow Rogue's every day, partly because of their endless craving to cluster and find in numbers the protection that their powers couldn't give them.

"Miss Adams is sick," Kitty informed them as she switched the pile of books in her arms for the pile of books in her locker. "You're watching _Field of Dreams_."

"Aw, Ah hate that movie," Rogue griped.

"How can you hate it?" asked Kurt. "It's American."

"You like _Schindler's List_?"

"Also American."

Gambit leaned against the neighboring locker and gave his cards a reassuring shuffle as he scanned the milling crowd of students. He saw Lance Alvers approached long before anyone else knew he was coming.

"Where's your posse?" he inquired, letting the cards buzz through his fingers.

Kitty turned, and her face lit up. "Hey, Lance."

Lance had his hands stuck into the pockets of his jeans, and his shoulders were more hunched than Gambit was used to seeing them. "Hey, Kitty. Can I talk to you?"

"Yeah," answered Kitty, her tone changing as she picked up on the stress in his voice. "What's wrong?"

"Just come with me a minute."

Kitty moved to follow him, but stopped when Gambit placed a hand around her arm. "Anything you got to say, Alvers, you say it where I can see you."

"It's none of your business," Lance snapped.

"My team, my business. An' somehow I get de feeling dat lettin' you outta my sight ain't such a good idea."

"Gambit, it's just Lance," Kitty insisted. "It's fine."

"Gambit's right, Kitty," put in Rogue, though she kept her eyes on the ground as she said it. "You shouldn't go off by yourself."

"Why not?"

"Just trust me."

"Come on, Kitty," Lance pleaded. "Just for a minute. It's important."

"So who's payin' for de gas in your car dese days?" asked Gambit. "Still freelancin', or you set yourself up wit' a regular contract?"

"Shut up, swamp rat," Lance snapped, but he backed down. "Forget it. Never mind." He slunk off into the crowd.

Kitty looked from Gambit to Rogue and back again. "What's the matter with you two?"

"Nothin'," Rogue lied. Gambit just didn't say anything, but the buzzing of the cards as they flickered through his fingers was suddenly very loud indeed.

* * *

_Passe-le: _pass it. 


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

* * *

Training that afternoon was capture-the-flag. Rogue had a comm radio fitted into her ear, keeping her in touch with Bobby, Scott, Amara, and Gambit. She was flying above the canopy of the woods behind the mansion, keeping a lookout for any movement below that might show her where the other team was gathering.

Scott's voice crackled in her ear. "Rogue, how's it coming up there?"

"Nothin' yet," she answered. "They're keepin' it low. Watch yourselves down there."

"Amara, how's the right flank looking?"

"All quiet, Cyclops."

"Gambit, left flank?"

"_Rien_."

There was a brief pause. "Gambit, I already asked you about keeping it English-only on the comm line."

"_Desolé._"

Rogue rolled her eyes. She knew, and by now everybody else knew as well, that _desolé_ meant 'sorry,' but this fact made her only slightly less annoyed.

She heard Scott sigh, but he didn't say anything more, which she thought was a good sign. And when Gambit spoke again, it was in English—also promising. "Heard somethin', ten o'clock."

"I'm checking it out," Scott answered.

"Ah'm closer," Rogue offered.

"Negative, Rogue. We're outnumbered two to one in the air, so you stay up there and hold the line."

"Scott," Bobby piped up warily, "I think Nightcrawler just popped in and popped out. I think he has our twenty."

"Amara, fall back to the flag. I'll move right and cover you. I want Iceman to have some backup if Nightcrawler poofs in some of their firepower."

"I've got like four feet of ice on it," Bobby announced in his defense, sounding insulted.

"Watch out for Kitty," Rogue suggested from above. "She and Kurt might tag-team it."

"They've got us on the defensive, guys. This isn't good. Rogue, any chance of you making an offensive run up there?"

"I still don't have a twenty on their flag."

"It ain't down here in de left corner," Gambit announced. "I've hit de back perimeter."

"Did anyone see you?"

"Don't t'ink so."

"Okay. Turn right and head down the line until you see the flag. When you spot it, signal Rogue. I'm going to fall back to our flag and hold a tight defense until you guys make your move. We're all counting on you."

"So no pressure," Gambit quipped.

There was silence on the comm for some time. Rogue scanned the treetops, looking for some movement that might indicate to her what the other team was doing. She was not good at waiting.

She didn't have to wait long. Shouts and noise exploded in her earpiece. "Hold the flag!" "Watch out—Kitty!" "We're under attack!"

Rogue twisted in the air, ready to dive back to her own team's flag and join the fight, when something exploded in a flash of light and heat over the other team's side of the playing terrain. Gambit had found the flag.

Rogue dove, her hands held out in front of her face to keep any stray branches from getting in her eyes. Gambit had Ray, who'd evidently been their flag guard, in a complicated-looking chokehold. The flag—actually a dish towel tied to a stick, but no less precious for that—was stuck in the ground next to them.

Rogue seized it and took off, plowing recklessly through the trees as she charged back to her own line. She skidded to a stop, her heels digging into the dirt to slow herself, and yelled into the comm, "We got it! We got it!"

"Too late!"

Rogue looked up and backwards. Kurt was hanging by his feet from a tree branch just on the other side of the line, merrily waving another dish-towel flag at her. She threw her own prize to the ground. "Aww, _man!_"

"Regroup, you guys," Scott ordered. "Game's over."

By ones and twos, her team members emerged from the trees. The winners looked smug, the losers annoyed, but no one was too upset.

"So you block with the left?" Ray was asking Gambit. "To the outside?"

"_Non,_ inside. Den dey open. See?" He went through the chokehold again, more slowly, so Ray could see how he'd done it. "Block to de inside, right hand to de windpipe . . . thumb an' first knuckle, like dat . . . and den your left hand's free to take de back a'de head." He let Ray go. "Try it." He threw a slow punch. Ray blocked and captured him. "_Bien._"

"Good game, everybody," Scott told them. "It was close. Any casualties?"

"I think I have a splinter," said Bobby, holding up the offended hand. Jean took a look and removed the splinter without resorting to tweezers.

"Everyone's free to go except Gambit and Rogue," Scott announced. "You guys get some water and meet me in the Danger Room in five. Roberto, Kitty, and Sam, you're on dinner duty. Everybody else: homework."

Everybody headed back to the house. Gambit fell into step beside Rogue, rubbing his throat and looking annoyed. "What's he after me for now? I did nothin' today! Yet."

"'S'only four thirty. You got time." She shoved him with her shoulder, and he shoved her back. "Relax. Ah know what's up."

"So what's up?"

Rogue didn't tell him. He made such a habit of not telling her things that she wanted to know that she felt it only fair to get back at him once and a while.

Five minutes later, as ordered, they were in the Danger Room with Scott.

"Rogue training," Scott announced.

"Ah knew it," Rogue moaned.

Gambit raised his eyebrows and waited for further information.

"Rogue needs to be able to use the powers of everybody on the team," Scott explained. "She's a backup. In case anyone gets incapacitated in a fight, she can still use their abilities if we need her to. So I'm going to have you transfer your powers over to her and then give her a crash course in how to use and control them."

Gambit looked from Scott to Rogue and back. "When y'say 'crash course' . . ."

"That's why we're doing it in here. Safeties on."

"It's okay," Rogue assured him. "I've handled everybody else's powers. And the headache isn't too bad. Couple aspirin. Couple hours."

"Thanks."

"It's okay if you want to do this another day," said Scott.

"_Non. _S'All right." He turned to face Rogue, apparently ignoring Scott for the moment. He took her by the shoulders and turned her so she was directly face-to-face with him.

"Better take y'gloves off, _chère_."

She pulled off the gloves and stuck them in her pocket. Her hands felt exposed and vulnerable.

"I'm gonna try somethin'," he told her, not releasing his grip on her shoulders. "An' you can stop me if you want to."

"What're you gonna try?"

Then, so suddenly that she didn't quite know how it happened, he was very, very close to her.

All the panic reflexes that had been trained into Rogue's brain by years of no-touch rules all went off at once. She would have jumped backward, but he was still holding her by the shoulders—a grip she could have broken easily, but that kept her from acting purely on reflex. And the gasp of breath that she took was full of the scent of bourbon and cayenne pepper, and a rush of sensation swept through her, all heat and tingles and something unidentifiable but strangely addictive and compelling.

One coherent thought managed to cross her mind: _Oh mah gosh, is he gonna _kiss_ me?_ And two coherent words managed to escape her mouth: "Crazy Cajun."

And then he kissed her.

It was, of necessity, a very brief kiss. Which was good, because Rogue didn't know how much more she could have handled. Her knees started to give way almost immediately. The feelings were overwhelming, exciting, terrifying, wonderful. And they were all complicated by the less-unfamiliar and less-pleasant rush of Gambit's powers and identity being drained out of him and into her.

They both pulled away, but not too far, still leaning on one another for balance. When Rogue opened her eyes, she saw a thousand unnamed colors in Gambit's face as his expanded vision overlay her own. The world felt suddenly cold all around her, and he was so temptingly warm . . . she leaned into him again, almost without perceiving she was doing it, and then realized with a jolt that he was doing the same.

She jerked away, and he stumbled. Rogue tried to catch him, but he grabbed her wrists and held her hands away from him. "_Attention. Tu peut exploser n'importe quoi a ce moment."_

_"Pourquoi as-tu fait ça?"_ Rogue demanded.

_"Parce que je dis que tu va être embrassée au moins une fois dans ta vie, et c'est moi qui t'emrasseras. Voilà pourquoi." _He let go of her wrists, leaving her to hold her hands in the air well away from any potential explosives, and leaned on his knees to catch his breath. "_Mais la mal à la tête, ce n'est pas une blague, ça."_

_"Je suis desolée."_

_"C'est de ma propre faute." _He glanced up at Scott, about whom Rogue had momentarily forgotten. _"Tu te souviens d'anglais?"_

"Oh. Yeah." Rogue stretched her tongue and jaw, as though she'd just swallowed something sticky and unpleasant, and tried to make her mouth remember that it wasn't supposed to know how to speak French. "Can Ah touch anything yet?"

"Give it a sec."

"Anybody hurt?" asked Scott. His expression was blank and military. Rogue could feel herself blushing.

"Just a little dizzy," Rogue assured him. "And . . . headachey. But we're okay." She met his hidden eyes, trying to make him hear what she wanted to tell him. _It's okay. I don't mind. You don't have to be angry._

Scott winced. Rogue blanched.

"Sorry," he told her. "It's just . . . your eyes."

"Goes good wit' your hair," said Gambit.

"You look possessed," said Scott.

Rogue squeezed her eyes shut. "Sorry! I forgot!" She tried to imagine what she must look like, with the red and black pigmentation that gave Gambit his night vision, and understood why Scott had jumped.

"It's okay," Scott assured her. "Just concentrate on what you need to do."

Rogue opened her eyes, looking straight at Gambit and nowhere else, her face burning with embarrassment.

Gambit sat cross-legged on the floor and drew a card out of his pocket. "See this?" he asked Rogue.

"Yeah."

"What is it?"

"Seven 'a hearts."

"Does it blow up?"

"Does if you're touchin' it."

"_Non_. It's a card. It's a piece of paper with coating on it. It ain't hot, it ain't gunpowder. Just a card. Now you remember that, and take it."

Rogue took the corner of the card between her thumb and forefinger, trying to remember what he'd told her.

"Feelin' a little tingle in de heel of your hand?"

"Yeah." It felt like pins and needles, only warmer.

"Give it a push up int' your fingers."

The card began to glow, and tongues of flame licked up its sides.

"Now get rid of it!"

Too late. The card exploded in her hand, showering her with bits of burning paper. Rogue yelped, but could tell that she wasn't hurt. She could not, however, tell that her hair was on fire until Scott jumped forward and put her out.

She glanced between Cyclops and Gambit with a sheepish, apologetic expression. "Guess Ah blew it."

"No worse'n I used to," Gambit assured her, drawing another card. "Now take a deep breath an' try again."

They worked for about half an hour, until Rogue's powers began to fade and her eyes returned to their normal color. Then Scott, in the same flat, emotionless voice, told them that training was over and they could go.

As soon as the Danger Room door was closed behind them. Rogue laid into Gambit. "That was the stupidest thing you've ever done. Ah coulda kilt you!"

"You complainin'?" asked Gambit, making a good show of looking hurt.

"No . . . yes! Come on, you _know _how dangerous that kind of stunt is."

"Worth it, though."

Rogue stopped walking and stared at him. Hesitantly, she asked, "Really?"

Gambit grinned at her. "Second-best kiss of my life."

Then he walked away.

And after a long second of open-mouthed shock, Rogue felt herself getting really, really mad.

There wasn't a reason in the world why she should be any good at kissing, considering the amount of practice she'd had, but the intensely personal gesture followed by the flippant remark had been deliberately meant to drive her nuts, and it was working. She lifted off the ground and went streaking up the hallway after him. "_Second_ best? _Second?_"

He just grinned and headed up the stairs.

"What kind of a . . . who says 'second-best'? What kind of jerk tells a girl _second-best?_ You're just a creep, you know that? A smart-alec, full-of-himself, nasty, selfish, stupid, disgusting Cajun pain in the butt! Ah'll show _you_ second-best!"

They were on the main floor now, well within earshot of the rest of the team who were doing homework in the living and dining rooms. Rogue didn't care. She continued to fling at him every applicable name she could think of, almost without drawing breath, until he reached the door of his room. Then she demanded, "What was your first-best, then?"

He turned and looked at her. "Y'don't remember?"

"Ah wasn't there."

"_Si_, you were dere. Maybe not _all_ dere, but dere. When dey was stockpilin' you t'bust out Apocalypse. Kicked de trash of everyone else in de compound, but me y'kissed. Knocked me out fo'two hours. Best kiss 'a my life."

And then he closed the door of his bedroom in her astonished face.

* * *

After dinner (during the course of which Rogue and Gambit were perfectly civil to one another again; no one bothered to comment) Gambit disappeared for a couple of hours. This was also fairly normal. Rogue did fourteen mind-numbing math problems and read a chapter of European history and tried very hard not to think about having been kissed. It wasn't going to happen ever again, so there was no point in dwelling on it. But _wow_. If she was destined to only have one kiss in her whole life, she was glad it had been that one.

She did wish that Scott hadn't been there. It wasn't that he wasn't speaking to her now . . . he was much too mature for stunts like that . . . he just wasn't talking to her, or even looking at her, unless he couldn't help it. In the midst of all the tingling excitement of the kiss was a twinge of guilt—like she'd hurt, betrayed, her oldest friend.

As darkness began to fall, Gambit appeared through the front door. "Rogue, c'mere."

"Almost done with this chapter."

"Come on."

Reluctantly, Rogue set aside the massive book and followed him outside.

There was a motorcycle on the drive.

It wasn't a monster Harley, like Logan's. It was lighter, smaller, made for racing instead of cruising. Rogue didn't know the first thing about motorcycles, but from the smug look on Gambit's face she figured this had to be at least a half-decent machine.

"What the . . . you got a _motorcycle?_"

"Wanna go fo'a ride?"

Rogue laughed, her jaw nearly falling off her face. "You're crazy!"

"Mebbe. C'mon."

But before she could take a step towards the bike, half the household had swarmed out the front doors to see what was making Rogue shout this time.

"Hey, _cool_!" Roberto announced.

"Maaaan, I want a motorcycle," griped Bobby.

"Git y'own, Iceman," Gambit told him.

Logan, with all the authority of expertise, approached the bike and knelt next to it. "Good engine," he announced after a brief examination. "Needs some work, though. How many miles on her?"

Before Gambit could answer, Scott cut in. "Where did you _get_ this?"

"In town."

"Where, exactly, in town?"

Gambit produced two sheets of paper from the inside pocket of his jacket: a vehicle registration and a receipt-of-payment from the dealership in Bayville where the Institute took any car problem Logan couldn't handle. On the back of the page, the salesman had scribbled a note: _Paid in full, cash. Bills good._

"Oh, an' I got dis, too," added Gambit, passing over a driver's license with a motorcycle endorsement. It was in his legal name, and bore his picture.

Papers in one hand and license in the other, Scott demanded, "Where did you get the money for this? The Professor didn't pay for it."

"_Non_. My money."

"You don't have any money."

"I don't recall my financial situation bein' any a'your business."

"You _promised_ the Professor. You promised him you wouldn't break the law."

Gambit took the registration back and made a great show of studying it. "Did I forget t'sign someplace?"

"_Where did you get the money?_"

Gambit took the license back, too, and pocketed all the documents again. "My money," he repeated, the slightest trace of menace in his voice. "I had it before I come here. I earned it. I ain't broke my word to de Professor, and de money's mine t'do wit' as I please." He took Rogue by the wrist and mounted the motorcycle, pulling her on board behind him.

"Rogue . . ." Scott trailed off, his lips pressed into one thin, worried, disapproving line.

"Just one ride," Rogue insisted . . . not asking his permission, but his forgiveness.

"I'll have'er home before school in de mornin'," Gambit promised, smirking. He revved the engine, and Rogue grabbed him around the waist so the bike wouldn't go shooting out from underneath her.

"_Allons voler_?" Rogue asked as he revved the engine.

"_Allons voler_," Gambit agreed.

And then they were gone, with Rogue's delighted, startled shriek trailing behind them.

* * *

Rogue, of course, could easily fly as fast as the motorcycle could drive. But there was a big difference between flying under your own power, a thousand feet above any obstacles, and clinging to Gambit's back while the freeway went whizzing past on either side of her and the motorcycle snarled menacingly between her knees. And Gambit seemed to enjoy her thrilled terror as much as she did. He pushed the bike to the limits of its speed, taking curves far too sharply, trusting his own skill more than any rational human being would have trusted it, filling Rogue's stomach with twisting terror but never actually jostling her from her seat.

They stopped at the top of one of the taller hills, north of town but east of the mansion, where they could see all the way to the wedge of forest land between the freeway and the coast.

Gambit killed the engine and kicked down the stand of the bike. "Runs pretty good," he announced with satisfaction. "Prob'ly gonna need an oil change pretty soon, though."

"Boys and their toys," observed Rogue, brushing her windswept hair out of her face.

"Fun, right?" asked Gambit, craning around to catch her expression.

"Yeah," Rogue agreed. "Fun." She grabbed two handfuls of his jacket and tugged, half playful and half frustrated. "What is it with you? Yeh get me in so much trouble, and yeh make me so mad . . ."

"But fun, right?"

"Right."

"_Bon_. Y'need fun."

He looked away from her, across the valley where Bayville rested, out across the horizon, away to the south and the west. "I need fun, too," he admitted.

Rogue rested her chin on his shoulder, reaching up a hand to flip the collar of his coat as a barrier between their two cheeks. "New Orleans?"

Gambit didn't answer her, and Rogue didn't insist. But almost as though their minds were still connected, she could sense what he was feeling. The purchase of a motorcycle meant he could go anywhere, anywhere he wanted . . . except where he most wanted to go.

What Gambit was thinking, but that Rogue didn't know, was that spending such a great proportion of his emergency stash on the bike meant that he was thousands of dollars farther away from his backup plan of vanishing at a moment's notice. He was coming closer to committing himself to the Institute, drifting farther away from the LeBeau mansion and everything that he had known and been.

Rogue, of course, knew none of this. But she recognized the sudden melancholy of his mood, and in respect for it wrapped her arms tightly around his waist and laid her cheek on his back, and was silent. Gambit wrapped one of his hands around one of hers and watched the sun go down.

* * *

It was far too late in the evening when Gambit pulled his motorcycle into the garage next to Logan's. Rogue picked herself straight up off the bike and landed next to it, waiting for Gambit as he dismounted. "Ah'm gonna be such a zombie in school tomorrow," she moaned, stretching her stiff back. "What time is it?"

Gambit put a hand around her wrist, covering her watch. "Better not t'look, _chère_."

"Rogue?" Kitty, quite literally, poked her head through the door that led to the house. "Oh, thank goodness."

"Are you _still awake_?" Rogue demanded. "You weren't sitting up for me, were you?"

"Kind of . . ."

"Oh, Kitty, Ah'm sorry!"

"It's okay. The Professor said you hadn't gone too far, and you were okay, but I was worried anyway. You were gone a long time."

"My fault," said Gambit. "_Desolé_."

"Go to bed, you nutcase!" Rogue ordered. She shooed Kitty back through the door and took hold of the handle to open it.

"_Attends_," Gambit ordered, holding up a hand. His head was turned toward the still-open garage door, and he was suddenly very still.

"What is it?" Rogue asked in a whisper.

Gambit didn't answer, but he drew his staff from the pocket of his jacket and extended it. Kitty stuck her head back through the door, then brought the rest of her body through.

Gambit slunk along the side of the X-Van, making not the slightest noise, and slipped into the darkness. Kitty and Rogue followed, Kitty phased and Rogue flying to imitate his silence.

Then, with a heart-stopping thud, it was all over. Lance Alvers lay sprawled on the gravel of the driveway, Gambit on top of him. They both had their hands on the staff, but it was pressed against Lance's adam's apple and there was no way Lance was going to push hard enough to get it off. His feet were thrashing futilely in the pebbles.

"I told you t'stay away from my people," Gambit told him. "Sneakin' onto our grounds makes me t'ink you didn't quite understand me." He gave the staff another shove.

"Get . . . gerrof me!" Lance choked. The ground under their feet gave an ominous shudder.

"Get off him, Gambit! He'll wake up the whole house," Kitty ordered. In one graceful movement, Gambit was on his feet, the staff flipped so that the end of it pointed directly between Lance's eyes. Lance very wisely did not move, though he spent a few seconds drawing in great gasps of air.

"I gotta talk to Kitty," he told them, when he'd recovered enough to speak clearly. "It's important."

"Better be," Rogue observed. "You know what time it is?"

"I'm sorry!"

"What's the matter, Lance?"

Lance rubbed his throat. "I need you to get me in to see Professor Xavier."

"You don't get to come near Professor Xavier," Gambit told him.

"What for?" asked Kitty.

"Toad. And Pietro. They're gone. Toad's been missing for three days, and nobody's seen Pietro since school let out today. They didn't take any of their stuff, or leave a note, or anything. They're just gone. But Xavier'd be able to find them, wouldn't he?"

"Cerebro ain't for trackin' down your delinquent roommates," Rogue snapped.

"No, you don't get it! Toad _never_ leaves Wanda alone. If he were planning to leave, he would have milked her for pity for days. And Pietro had a stash of like five hundred dollars hidden under his mattress, but it's still there. They wouldn't just disappear like this, unless they were, y'know . . ."

"Kidnapped?" asked Gambit. His voice had a cold, dangerous edge to it.

Lance met his eyes, which were now almost glowing red from some deep, burning anger. "Yeah."

Kitty hesitated. "Look, Lance. Go home for tonight. I'll talk to the Professor in the morning, and then I'll tell you at school what he said, okay?"

"Y'ain't doin' no favors fo'dis punk, _Minou_," Gambit announced. "We done him enough favors already."

"Gambit, leave him alone," Rogue pleaded. "Mebbe we should listen. Ah don't like Brotherhood any more than anybody, but if they're in real trouble . . ."

"Please, Kitty. Please, Rogue. You've gotta help me. I don't know what else to do, and I'm freaked, okay? If the Professor's mad, that's okay, but I need to talk to him. Tonight."

"Cause you've been such a great big help when our people have gone missin'," Gambit deadpanned.

"I've helped," Lance insisted defensively. "We helped with Apocalypse."

"I'm talkin' about since den."

"Gambit, shut up," Rogue ordered.

"Shut up about what?" Kitty asked. "Gambit, Lance . . . what's going on?"

Gambit set the end of his staff on the ground, now no longer needing it to menace Lance. His eyes were enough. "He never mentioned it to yeh? How he was plannin' to pay his bills dis summer? Never happened to mention in passing dat he took a contract from Mystique last spring t'take Rogue on a little airplane ride?"

"Gambit, _SHUT UP!"_ Rogue shrieked.

"WHAT?" Kitty cried.

"No!" Lance protested. "Kitty . . ."

"Kidnapped her on her crazy mother's orders, den stood by an' watched while Mystique popped her with sedatives an' hallucinogens 'till her free will was gone and used her to kill some woman dat no other weapon woulda left a mark on. Den he chased her across half New England so Mystique could finish whatever she was gonna do—"

"It was a job," Lance insisted, "It was just a job, and we were out of food . . ."

"Helps not t'be datin' yo'job's roommate."

"I didn't know Mystique was gonna hurt her!"

"What'd you _t'ink_ she was gonna do? T'ink she was kidnappin' Rogue so dey could go out for coffee?"

Kitty's face was a mask of heartbreak and horror; Rogue's was a mask of heartbreak and fury. Kitty turned to Lance, who was scrambling to his feet as though he could better defend his behavior from that position. "_You_ kidnapped her? _You_ did that?"

"Kitty, please—"

"My best friend! My _best friend_, Lance! And she could have died! How _could_ you?"

"Kitty, I'm sorry—"

"_Forget it_. You lied to me. You hurt Rogue. See if I _ever_ speak to you again, you . . . you . . ."

Gambit helpfully supplied a French expletive. Kitty, hoping it meant something really vile, called Lance it. Then she turned and ran headlong into the house, not bothering to aim for the door. Lance lunged forward to follow her, but Gambit's staff landed across his chest, not hard enough to knock him down but hard enough to let him know it could be done. Lance thought better of chasing Kitty and took off into the darkness.

And that left Rogue and Gambit alone together on the driveway in front of the garage.

Rogue felt no desire to shout. Shouting was for mild annoyances, for headaches and stupid stunts. The anger that she felt was beyond shouting. In a voice as cold as ice and as sharp as broken glass, she announced, "Ah promised him that if he walked away, Kitty would never know. And he walked away. That was the deal Ah made so you and me and Logan could all live through that fight. That wasn't your secret to tell. And neither was what happened to me."

"Kitty had to know what her boyfriend is," Gambit told her resolutely.

"How _dare_ you break my promise. How _dare_ you tell Kitty I killed someone."

"What happened last spring wasn't your fault. It was his."

"Fault doesn't matter! It was over, Remy, over and forgotten. Kitty should never have known. Ah _promised_!"

"_Chère . . ._" Gambit reached for her hand, but she jerked away, three feet back and four in the air, where she hung like an avenging angel.

"Don't you touch me! Don't you _dare_ let me see your face here again, Remy LeBeau! I've had enough of you wreckin' my life and usin' me to mess with people I care about. Did you even _think _about what that would do to Kitty? Or Scott? Or me? You can go slinkin' back to New Orleans for all I care, and I hope they shoot you!"

On the word _shoot_, her voice cracked as one furious sob forced its way up through her throat. She shot straight up into the air and came down in a steep arc, landing on the balcony of her bedroom and slamming the window shut so hard that the glass panes broke. She jerked the curtains closed.

Kitty was curled up in the middle of her bed, her face white. Rogue pulled the blanket off her own bed and wrapped her roommate in it, then sat curled up next to her with her arms around her. "Ah'm so sorry, Kitty."

"I can't believe he did that to you. I am so sorry. I didn't know."

"Ah didn't want you to know. Ah just wanted it to be over."

"It is over, Rogue. It's _so_ over."

Kitty promptly started crying. Rogue held her and rocked her until she fell asleep, then sat in the darkness without moving, listening to the silence of the black, cold, empty night in the big, cold, lonely house.

When the two girls woke the next morning, Gambit was gone.

* * *

The most French-heavy chapter yet! You guys are lucky the dialogue tags are still in English, though they won't be for much longer at the rate we're going. No, I'm kidding. I'll be good from here on out.

(Is this because Gambit isn't coming back, you all ask? I'll just be evil and leave you hanging on that one.)

_Rien: _Nothing.

And one whole whopping conversation, just translated into English here to spare me the typing:

"Careful. Y'could explode anythin' right now."

"Why did you do that?"

"Because I say you gonna be kissed at least once in yo'life, and I'm gonna be de one t'kiss you. That's why. But y'weren't kidding about dat headache."

"Ah'm sorry."

"My own fault. You remember English?"

_Si_: A positive answer to a negative question. So _oui_ would have meant "yes, I agree, you weren't there," but _si_ disagrees with Rogue, meaning "Yes, you were."

_Attends: _Wait.

_Minou_: Kitty.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

* * *

"Made a clean job of it," Logan observed, arms folded across his chest as he surveyed Gambit's empty room. "Even made the bed before he went."

All of Gambit's schoolbooks were stacked on his dresser, and his clothes were hung neatly in his closet. His gray-and-burgundy training uniform, the most expensive thing they'd given him, was in the laundry basket.

"Is anything else missing?" asked Scott. "The training supplies, the medical equipment, the computer records . . . the good silver?"

"Not as far as anyone's found. Everything he got with Storm is here. Looks like he left in the clothes he came in. Sam left a box of granola bars on the counter last night, and this morning it was empty and in the trash, but I really think we're okay not calling the insurance company over half a box of Quaker Chewies."

"So . . . do we go after him, then, or what?"

"Why? You missing him already?"

Scott hmphed. "I have never been so glad to get someone out of this house. Including Juggernaut."

Logan snorted.

Scott eyed him. "What? _You're_ not missing him, are you?"

"Nah. But he asked me to pick him up a pack of cigarettes . . . couldn't buy 'em himself, being officially eighteen and all . . . and I didn't give them to him yesterday. So now I'm stuck with a pack of slims and nothing to do but smoke them myself." He paused, debating whether to go on, then plowed on. "And it's . . . it's a kick in the gut when you lose one, y'know? Tabitha and Lance and Colossus and . . . well, and now Gambit. It's just rough."

"So . . . do you _want_ to go after him?"

"If you went, Fearless Leader, I'd go with you. That's all I'm sayin'."

"No one is going anywhere," announced Professor Xavier, appearing in the doorway. "When Gambit joined this team, he did so on the condition that he'd be allowed to leave whenever he wanted."

"Some warning would have been nice," Logan grumbled.

"He bought a motorcycle," Scott pointed out. "How much more warning do you want?"

Before anyone could formulate a good response for this, Rogue came shooting up the hallway from the girls' wing. She was in her training uniform and did not appear to have any desire to put her feet on the ground. "So who's goin'?" she demanded, the dark circles of sleeplessness under her eyes making her look a tiny bit crazed. "Scott, you ain't got school today, right? Hurry and suit up so we can track him before he gets too far!"

"We're not going, Rogue," Scott told her.

"What'd you mean, 'we're not going'? You may not like Gambit, but he's one'a the X-Men, and if he's in trouble—"

"I promised Gambit that he would not be tracked or followed when he chose to leave," Professor Xavier reminded her gently. "Since there's no indication that he didn't leave of his own free will, I must honor that promise."

"_You_ promised," Rogue spat. "_Ah_ didn't promise nothing. Ah'm gonna go find him, by myself if Ah have to."

"No, Rogue. My promise was that none of us would follow him. I cannot allow you to go."

"Like to see you try'n stop me," snapped Rogue, her hands balling into fists at her sides.

The Professor pursed his lips, then closed his eyes. Rogue cried out as a telepathic wave hit her, gently whiting out her consciousness. She sagged to the floor, her eyes squeezed shut.

"I'm sorry, Rogue."

"We had a fight," Rogue breathed, her eyes still scrunched up although the Professor had let her go. "Last night. Ah was angry. Ah told him t'get out. This is my fault."

"Gambit is an adult who can make his own decisions. You cannot take responsibility for what he chooses to do." Xavier sighed and placed one hand on her arm. "Go lie down, Rogue. You can sit out training this morning. I wouldn't want you to have a headache at school."

"How kin Ah go to school?" Rogue moaned. "He left. He left me."

Logan and Scott exchanged a dark, grim look.

"But we will not," Xavier assured her. He turned his chair and led her back to her room.

After a moment of very pregnant silence, Scott asked, "So what if I wanted to go after him so I could chop him into little pieces for making Rogue cry?"

Logan extended a fistful of claws and used the point of one of them to scratch his jaw. "I'd be okay with that."

* * *

Gambit pulled his motorcycle into a wedge of space between a wall and a car and killed the engine. The back side of the Bayville Walgreen's was in front of him.

He'd been inclined not to slow down until he reached New York City, but his judgment had won out over his temper. He had to regroup, calm down, and decide what he was going to do next. And to do that, he needed a sanctuary.

He heaved the heavy manhole cover over onto the pavement and set his feet on the second rung of the access ladder. Even if any of the X-Men _did_ decide to track him, there was no way they'd find him down here.

Not that they would. Rogue was the only one who might have cared if he left, and she was ready to kill him. Well, that was fine. Just _fine_. He reached over his head and pulled the cover back into place, shutting out the sunlight.

Had he been wrong last night? Maybe. He'd been so angry. He kept remembering how Rogue had looked when he'd found her on the warehouse roof, unhurt by her fall but unable to open her eyes, the dusting of needle marks in her arm leaving a record of what had happened to her mind. He'd seen her twitch, heard her cry out in her sleep. Her nightmares had augmented his own, so that every time he saw Julian convulse from heart failure he heard Rouge's anguished whimpering, too. So maybe he hadn't been thinking as clearly as he might have been when faced with the supreme irony of Lance Alvers begging Rogue and Kitty for help in finding his kidnapped friends. But he wasn't about to let such a treacherous person near Rogue or anyone she loved.

And that had ended him up here. He dropped the last ten feet and landed in a crouch on the cold concrete of the tunnel floor.

As he set off along the tunnel, he contemplated what he was going to do next. Something. It wasn't like there weren't any jobs going for ex-Guild thieves or alpha-class mutant mercenaries.

A professional thief and mercenary. Twelve hours ago he'd been a high school senior with a houseful of friends.

The darkness of the tunnel was no problem, but it took quite a bit of concentration to remember the complicated path to the Morlock camp. He wouldn't be able to stay long; too much could be chasing him. But it would be a great comfort to pass a few hours in peace and security, before he had to learn all over again what it meant to be homeless. He couldn't stay here with them, in Bayville. Not so close to the Institute.

Hurt and loneliness came crashing over him like one of Bobby's ice walls, so violently that he stumbled and had to catch himself against one of the walls. He squeezed his eyes shut, forcing himself to remember his anger. He could miss Rogue and the others when he was far, far away—too far to talk himself into trying to go back.

He rounded the last corner and emerged into the camp of the Morlocks.

* * *

Rogue lay curled up on her bed, her hands tucked tightly against her chest, so angry and miserable she wanted to scream. He'd left. She'd lost her temper with him, and he'd left.

Part of her was determined to never, ever forgive him for shouting out everything that she'd happily half-forgotten, things that she'd never wanted to know and never wanted anyone else to know, either. Someone had died. She couldn't remember how, or why, but a faint memory of horror teased at her mind, unidentifiable and unsettling. Kitty was never going to look at her the same way again. Someone had died that day. And Gambit had blurted all that out just to humiliate stupid Lance Alvers.

But he was gone. He'd just up and left, like the Institute was a hotel he'd been staying at for a while, like Rogue and the rest of the X-Men were people he nodded to in passing but had never really known or cared about. How could he just _leave_, without a goodbye, without a note?

She knew he could. She'd been dreading he would. In recent weeks, she'd forgotten . . . forgotten that nothing held him here, that the moment their friendship soured he could vanish from the household like a ghost. But now she remembered . . . now, when it was too late to check her anger or say she was sorry.

Not that she was sorry. Just miserable. And sorry, too.

She heard the unmistakable puffing, snapping sound of Kurt avoiding a locked door, and sulfuric smoke drifted down onto her. Her almost-a-brother was clinging to the wall above her, head-down, peering warily into her face.

Rogue brushed her hair aside to glare at him. "You just wanna say 'I told you so' and get it over with?"

Kurt offered her a plate. "Toast?"

"No."

"I put strawberry jam and cinnamon on it."

"Ah just wanna be alone, Kurt."

He climbed down and sat on her bed, setting the plate of toast on her hip. "You can be alone if you want, but you should eat something first. Being sad is just worse if you're hungry."

Rogue looked up, sighing. She _was_ hungry. "You're right," she admitted, knowing that he was too nice a person to gloat. "Thanks, Kurt."

"Hey," he said with a grin as she sat up, "vhat are big brothers for?"

"You're my _little_ brother, Shorty."

"Who's shorty? I'm taller than you. When I stand up straight. But it hurts my legs."

"You're younger."

"_You're _younger. My birthday's three months ahead of yours."

"You made up your birthday."

"So did you." The pretend argument trailed off, and Kurt added, as an afterthought, "I'm sorry, Rogue. About Gambit."

"Thanks." Though the gratitude was unenthusiastic, it was still genuine.

"You want to come downstairs? I'll make you more toast. I'm the toast master."

"Ah really just wanna be alone for a little while. If that's okay."

"It's fine." Kurt took the plate back.

"Do me one favor?" Rogue asked.

"Yeah?"

"Watch out for Kitty today. She had kind of a rough night, too. Only I'm kickin' up such a fuss here that maybe no one's noticing her."

"I'll make sure she's okay," Kurt promised, before vanishing. Rogue finished eating and curled up on herself again.

* * *

"Callisto!"

Nothing answered Gambit's shout but echoes.

He held his lit card high, pouring light into every shadowed nook. There were the sawed-off oil barrels, the heaps of cushions and mattresses, the cardboard boxes that held people's possessions. There was nothing else.

He stuck his hand into the barrel and held his palm close to the ashes. Stone cold. The fire had been out for a long time.

He tried shouting again. "CALLISTO!"

Nothing.

He found her staff lying on the concrete next to her bed. It was clean, without a smudge of blood or a fragment of skin or hair to show that her owner had fought against her attackers.

Gambit took a deep breath, forcing himself to be calm despite the panic rising up in his throat and the headache that was starting to squeeze his brain. Something that could take out an entire mutant community this quietly was not something he could face by himself. Though he hated to admit it, he knew where he had to go.

He turned and ran back the way he'd come.

* * *

Jean tapped twice on the door of Rogue's room before easing it open. "Rogue?"

Rogue was lying on her bed, curled in on herself, facing the wall. Jean knelt down next to her bed. "How are you feeling?"

"Like crap," Rogue mumbled.

"Think you can go to school? It's better for you to be out of the house and doing something than sitting here to mope. Come on, get dressed. Everybody else is already gone. I'll drop you off on my way to class."

Too miserable even to tell Jean to shove it, Rogue rolled out of bed and went to find something to wear.

Twenty minutes later, shielded with her usual protective layer of long gloves and heavy makeup, Rogue was slouched in the passenger seat of Jean's SUV with her bag on her lap. Jean pulled out of the garage and headed through the gate, turning south towards town.

They conducted most of the trip in silence before Jean finally spoke up. "I'm so sorry, Rogue."

"Not your fault and not your business," answered Rogue, staring at the trees that flicked past on the side of the highway.

"I know it's not. But I'm sorry anyway."

Jean wisely said nothing else until they pulled up in front of the school. Rogue was out of the car like a flash, but Jean jumped out, too. "Wait, Rogue!"

Rogue stopped and waited while Jean came around the car, then resentfully submitted to being hugged.

"You're going to make it through this," Jean told her.

"Yeah," Rogue sighed. "Ah always do."

"Excuse me?"

Rogue and Jean both turned. Walking up the sidewalk toward them were three bizarre-looking people. The one in the middle, walking slightly ahead of the other two, looked like Dracula the C.E.O. His eyes were red, and though his smile was polite, it revealed strangely pointed teeth. The man to his left wore a yellow coat with pink lapels and had long pink hair. The man to his right wore a black coat with purple lapels and had black hair. His skin was dark, dark purple.

"I assume I have the pleasure of addressing Miss Jean Gray and the young lady known as the Rouge?" asked the man in the lead.

Rogue and Jean both nodded, each of them bending their knees and shifting their weight forward, ready to jump into the air any second.

"Oh, good," said the man. "Just the two young women I wanted to see." He made a quick flicking gesture with his left hand.

Although all Jean _saw_ was the pink-haired man opening his mouth, she immediately _felt_ something big and heavy and fast come plowing at her like a wave. Without bothering to stop and analyze, she raised both her hands, braced one foot behind her, and _pushed._ The wave split around her, pressing on her shoulders and sending her hair flying, and behind her she heard a loud, silvery crash as the doors of the school shattered. She heard a thud and spared a glance over her shoulder. Rogue had tried to flee upward, but the wave had caught her and she now lay sprawled on the pavement, the contents of her bag scattered on the sidewalk.

Jean shifted herself sideways to shield Rogue and pulled all the spilled pens into the air. They went whizzing through the air at her three attackers, faster and sharper than bullets. The one with the pink hair shielded himself with another, less powerful, burst of sound, forcing the pens to veer away from him. The purple one bent around them, twisting himself like a fluid and then re-forming his body with the unsettling wobble of jell-o. Their spokesman simply let the pens impale him, raising one hand so a pencil punctured his palm instead of his head. He picked the pencil out like a thorn and tossed it away. He did not bleed.

"I've always found that telekinesis encourages creativity," he observed. "It's a very flexible power."

"_Who are you?_' Jean demanded.

"My name is Sinister," said the other politely, "and it's a genuine pleasure to meet you."

Then his black-coated companion reached out, across ten feet of open sidewalk, grabbed Jean's head, and smothered her into unconsciousness.

* * *

True to my promise, there is not one French word in the entirety of this chapter. I know you're all relieved. 


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

* * *

Scott heard the menacing growl of Logan's Harley as it pulled out of the garage and zoomed away up the drive. He didn't bother looking up. He knew Logan was as antsy as he was—frustrated and angry, looking for something to take it all out on. But they couldn't go after Gambit. The Professor had promised, and that promise bound them all more securely than iron chains. So Logan was off to blow off some steam, and Scott was left at home, staring at his homework.

The mansion was quiet. Hank was down in his lab, the Professor in his study, and Storm had driven off to pick up groceries. Normally, Scott enjoyed these few hours every Tuesday when he could enjoy peace and quiet at home. Today he was too antsy to appreciate it. He was _mad_ . . . mad at Gambit, for breaking Rogue's heart; mad at himself for not protesting more strenuously against Gambit's acceptance to the team. The X-Men, and Rogue in particular, were his responsibility. The sight of her heartbreak had made him want to kick himself. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

After a few attempts, he gave up on getting any studying done and went outside to shoot clay pigeons. Which meant that he was perfectly positioned to see Gambit come roaring through the gate and up the driveway.

Gambit veered onto the lawn, paying no heed to the damage he was doing to the grass, and swerved to a stop in front of Scott.

"You've got some nerve!" Scott announced.

"Shut up an' listen," Gambit ordered.

Scott punched him. Gambit twisted out of the way, but not fast enough, and caught a glancing blow on the jaw.

"You ran out on her, you son of—"

"Yeah. I'm a scumbag. Okay," Gambit acknowledged, pressing his hand against his face where the punch had landed and working his jaw to make sure it was still hinged. "We can slug dis out later. Right now, you gotta listen to me, 'cuz we got a big problem. Y'know de Morlocks?"

"The fringe group in the sewers?"

"Only dey ain't in de sewers no more. Dey camp's empty. No one's been dere fo' days, mebbe weeks. An' all dey stuff's still dere—food, medicine, kids' toys. Dey just gone."

"Maybe they left. I mean, Bayville's a small town. Maybe they decided to migrate into New York City or something."

"Lance Alvers was here las'night. He wanted de Professor to help him find Quicksilver an' Toad. Bot'of 'em gone missing wit'out a word."

"Kinda like you?"

"Shut up an' pay attention! Somet'in's goin' on here. Somet'in's takin' mutants outta Bayville, an' de X-Men could be next."

Before Scott could answer, his cell phone jangled in his pocket. He fished it out and flipped it open. "This is Scott."

"Hey, Scott," came Kitty's voice from the other end of the connection. "Nobody's answering at the house phone. Isn't Rogue coming to school today?"

Scott glanced up at Gambit, who was watching the phone so intently that there could be no doubt he could hear the conversation, too. "Yeah. Jean's bringing her. They left like—" he checked his watch, "an hour ago."

"Well, I've been waiting by her locker, and the bell's about to ring, and I can't see any sign of her. Kurt says she wasn't in first period."

Gambit folded his arms and assumed a very grim but undeniably I-told-you-so expression.

"Okay. Kitty, just go to class. I'll take care of it." He snapped the phone shut and stuffed back into the pocket of his jeans.

Gambit twisted the throttle of his motorcycle, letting the engine snarl. "Git on de bike."

Scott got on.

"I'm not done slugging you," he told Gambit as he tried to find somewhere to put his feet without getting them caught in anything moving.

"An' I ain't even started," answered Gambit. Then they were off.

* * *

Rogue woke up, felt groggy and ill, considered going back to sleep, and immediately decided against it. If there was one thing in this world she was more sick of her than her powers, it was getting kidnapped.

She was on a medical examining table, with leather straps around her wrists, ankles, and waist. The room, when she forced her eyes to open and examine it, was enormous and made of concrete. The air was cold.

All around her were pieces of medical machinery. Some of them she recognized as being similar to the things in the mansion's infirmary; others looked mysterious and threatening. On the table next to her lay Jean. There was an i.v. in her arm connected to a bag of clear fluid hanging from a wheeled stand. She was unconscious.

"Jean? Jean, wake up. Come on!"

"My goodness. Are you awake already?"

Rogue raised her head and saw her business-suited kidnapper, now wrapped in a lab coat, looking up at her from a desk at one end of the room. "You're remarkably resilient. I should have kept Rukus in here."

"I dunno who you think you are or what you think you're doin'," Rogue snarled, as much as she could with the disoriented slur that forced its way into her voice, "but you kidnapped the wrong couple of girls." She pulled up as hard as she could at the leather straps on her wrists, but they didn't so much as creak.

"I'm afraid your formidable strength will be less than helpful to you," the man informed her, rising from his chair and approaching her. "There's a gas dispersed throughout this room that impedes your ability to activate your powers—at least those that you consciously control. A mutant sedative, if you will. It's quite harmless, and once it clears from your lungs you'll recover with no ill effects. It's only in here as a failsafe, in case you wake up—which of course you did. That's unfortunate. I do apologize. I'd hoped to return you and your friend home before you had to know any of this had happened."

"Return us home?" Rogue demanded. "So why did you kidnap us if you're just going to put us back?"

"All I want from you, Rogue, is a sample. A few milligrams of your remarkable blood. I'm a geneticist, you see, Mutants are rather my specialty. And you are an amazing mutant. Unfortunately, it's also amazingly difficult to get any blood out of you, so I'm going to have to try some more original methods than syringes to get through your skin."

He opened the doors of a metal cabinet on wheels, selected a bottle, and poured a little of its contents into plastic cup. "Drink this, please."

"No freakin' way."

"It's not going to hurt you. I'll just dull your sensations and put you to sleep. I'm afraid there's no other way I can adequately dose you."

"Ah'm not drinkin' it."

"Please, Rogue. When I say 'original methods,' I'm talking about _very_ high-powered lasers. You're not going to want to be awake for this."

Rogue stared at him, fear twisting her stomach. "Who the heck are you?"

"My name is Sinister." He took hold of her right hand, still encased in its leather strap, and shook it politely.

* * *

They arrived at Bayville High in less time than Scott would have thought possible in a vehicle that wasn't the X-Jet. There was a mound of broken glass around the bottoms of the empty doorframes, around which someone had placed yellow 'Caution: Wet Floor' signs to warn away those with thin-soled shoes.

Scott pulled out his phone and dialed Jean's number, watching Gambit prowl around the mess of glass.

"Hi, this is Jean. I'm not answering my phone right now, so if you'll leave a message I'll get right back to you. Thanks!"

"Jean's not answering."

"Call it again."

Scott did so.

"Y'hear dat?"

Scott listened, and heard it: a faint, tinny rendition of Faith Hill's "This Kiss," which Jean had been using for her ringtone.

A quick search located the phone. It was sitting in the center console of Jean's SUV, which was parked in the parking lot with the windows opened just a crack to keep the air inside from getting stale.

"Locked," Scott observed, pulling on the handle of the passenger door. He looked up just in time to see Gambit shove a long, narrow strip of metal between the window and the door. After a few seconds, the lock raised into the 'unlocked' position. Gambit tucked the metal thing away somewhere inside his coat, yanked the door open, reached across to unlock the other, and started looking under the seats.

"What are we looking for?" Scott demanded, leaving lie for the moment the question of how Gambit had opened that door.

"Clues," Gambit told him. "Car's here, dey're not. Somet'in' happened between gettin' outta de car and gettin' int'de building. We gotta find out where dey went."

"There's nothing in here, Gambit. It's clean."

Gambit glared at him. "Don'know if it's escaped yo'notice, but Jean an' Rogue are_gone_. You wanna wait fo'dem to come home an'_den_ try'n figure out where dey went?"

"We're gonna figure this out," Scott snapped back, glaring with just as much enthusiasm but with much less effect, since Gambit had freaky Halloween-esque demon-red eyes and Scott was stuck wearing sunglasses. "But we can't help them unless we calm down and think. What kind of kidnapper parks the car, locks the doors, and leaves the windows cracked? They didn't leave anything for us to follow, so we've got to try something else. You said Lance told you that some of the Brotherhood guys had gone missing."

"_Ouais_."

"Then we've got to talk to Lance."

"He might not be in a real cooperatin' mood."

"Then we'll put him in one."

Gambit grinned. "Summers, fo'de first time in a month, I'm thinkin' I might actually have liked you."

* * *

The little cup of sedative rested on the table next to Rogue's head, waiting for her to be panicked enough to ask for it. Sinister, in the meantime, was busying himself with other things.

"You took Toad and Pietro, too, didn't you?" Rogue demanded. This was only the latest in a long string of questions she'd been hurling at him, from his first name to the morality of his mother, but this one, like all the others, he answered patiently and cheerfully. It also slowed down his work a little bit, which was all for the best.

"I did," he acknowledged.

"Are they dead?"

"No, certainly not. They're resting."

"From what?"

"Pietro is resting from a bone marrow sample, which unfortunately hurts rather a lot."

"And Toad?"

"Just stress."

"Whatever."

"Truly, I haven't touched him."

"You've had him down here for _three days_."

"And he has been very helpful."

"How?"

"He knows a great deal about the X-Men, and he's terrified of needles. He was how I knew which members of your household it would be worth my while to take. Unlike my earlier targets, you're too powerful and too well-protected to remove _en masse_. I had to pick and choose."

"And you picked me and Jean."

"Is it any wonder I wanted to examine you? You are what is known in the field as a 4-A mutant. You have four distinct alpha-class powers. Even your friend Gambit is only 2-A 2-B, and he's one of the most versatile mutants I've ever sampled."

"You sampled_Gambit_?"

"You might say he was the one who made all this possible."

Rogue thought she might be sick.

* * *

The Brotherhood house was a wreck. Even more so than usual.

Every window was shattered. The front door was only hanging on by the bottom hinge. Lance's jeep had rolled on its side. The half-crushed television lay on the lawn.

"At least somebody put up a fight," Gambit remarked, killing the engine on the motorcycle.

Scott was already off the bike and halfway to the house. "Lance? Toad? Blob? Pietro?"

Gambit pulled the door off its remaining hinge and let it fall on the pavement. It didn't much matter; the house looked like the remains of a hurricane anyway. Every single piece of furniture, even the kitchen appliances, was piled up against the side of the stairs. The door of the refrigerator was lying open, with pizza boxes, milk bottles, and the mandatory box of baking soda all spilled across the floor.

"Hello?" Scott shouted. "Anybody!"

From the bottom of the pile came a feeble _thunk_, followed by another. Someone under there was banging.

Scott grabbed the far corner of the refrigerator and pulled. "Hang on, we're coming!"

Gambit helped him to shift the massive weight, then set to work on the stove. "I don'see anybody."

A voice came up through the rubble, not clear enough to understand. But it was definitely a girl's voice.

"Wanda?" Scott called.

"I'm in the closet . . ."

"Is de door closed?" Gambit asked.

"Yeah!"

"Den get away from it. We gettin' out de firepower."

After a brief pause and some shuffling, she answered, "Okay!"

Scott lifted his sunglasses and cut one deep, burning slice through the debris. Gambit used a few lightly charged cards to clear out some of the heavier stuff until they could reach the door of the under-stairs closet and pull it open.

Wanda lay on the floor of the closet, half-buried in coats. A trickle of blood ran from underneath her hair, across her forehead, and down her nose. In a voice as shaky as it was sarcastic, she announced, "Hi, boys."

"Hi, Wanda," said Gambit.

"Stay still," Scott told her. "I'm calling an ambulance." He pulled out the cell phone again and dialed 911. "Where are you hurt?"

"Just my head," Wanda moaned. "Everything's kinda fuzzy."

"What happened?" asked Gambit, as Scott started talking to the dispatcher.

"They followed Lance back here. There were two guys. One of 'em could stretch, like silly putty, and the other one . . . I dunno, he just screamed or something and Blob just fell over, unconscious. Lance was gonna bring the house down, but by the time he had a good shake going the stretchy one already had him. So I . . . I just barricaded myself in. I couldn't think of anything else to do. I just couldn't hit them, with anything. I tried."

"You done right, Wanda," Gambit assured her.

"Wanda, we've got an ambulance coming," said Scott. "We're going to stay with you until they get here. You just need to stay still and stay awake."

"Okay," Wanda allowed, sighing.

"Do you have insurance?"

"Yeah. My dad took care of it. I've got cards in my purse . . . oh, crap, who _knows_ where that is? This place is a wreck."

"No more'n usual," observed Gambit.

"Well, that's true." She winced as Scott pressed a wadded-up t-shirt gently against the bleeding wound on her head.

"Sorry," he told her, wincing almost as much. "Just trying to slow down the bleeding a little."

"No problem," she hissed, her voice strained with pain.

"Do you remember anything else about what happened?" asked Scott, kneeling on a convenient half-a-kitchen-chair-seat while trying not to jostle the makeshift bandage. "Like, did you see how they got here?"

"I don't think they had a car or anything. I didn't hear one."

"So they probably didn't have too far to go," Scott observed. "Moving the Blob's no picnic, even when he's unconscious."

"There was another guy. I only saw him for a second. I don't think he even came in the house. Um . . . black hair, I think. Sort of vampire look. Business goth. And . . . and red eyes, like yours."

Gambit felt the blood drain out of his face.

"Red eyes? You sure?"

"Kinda captures the attention."

"An'de other guy—pink hair, real long?"

"Yeah."

"You know these thugs?" Scott demanded.

Gambit stood up and backed away, just to make sure that Scott couldn't hit him without removing the pressure from Wanda's wound. "Yeah, I know 'em."

When he didn't elaborate further, Scott demanded, "Well?"

"'F I tell you, you gonna shoot me."

"Gambit, Jean and Rogue are missing. Much as I'd like to shoot you, this is not the time to be doing it. So who are these guys, how do you know them, and what do they want with the mutant population of Bayville?"

"Red-eyes is called Sinister. Least, dat's de name he gave me. Met 'im in Paris just before I come here."

"What were you doing in Paris?"

"Breakin' into de Louvre."

"Gambit, this is_really_ not the time. Who is this Sinister guy?"

"A client."

"A client."

"_Ouais_."

"_Your_ client?"

"Yeah."

"You were working for him?"

Nod.

"Are you _still_ working for him?"

"_Non_. He blacklisted now."

"And why's that?"

"Cuz he knocked me out, did I-dunno-what t'me, put me on an airplane, an' I t'ink followed me here."

Cyclops stared at him.

"You're takin' dis well," Gambit observed.

"You know, I think I might shoot you?"

"Saw it comin', yeah."

"Why didn't you_ tell _us? You pulled a job for some lunatic kidnapper . . . and I don't want to even _know_ what it was you were doing for him . . . who turned on you and then let you go. And instead of telling someone this had happened, instead of getting help and advice, instead of finding out who this guy was and what he wanted with you, you just forgot about it and came to Bayville. Into _our house._"

"I wasn't followed. I made sure."

"OBVIOUSLY NOT SURE ENOUGH!" Scott roared. "Jean and Rogue are _gone_. _You_lead him right to them. So don't give me your crap about how you 'made sure.' You screwed up. And if _anything_ happens to those girls because of you—"

Gambit only nodded. The worst threat Scott could conjure up paled in comparison to the suffering Gambit would inflict upon himself if his mistakes created consequences he couldn't fix. An entire tribe of people, hardly any of them fighters, had shown him kindness, and their hospitality had been repaid with destruction. The horror of it made him furious, and unfortunately he had no one but Scott to vent his fury on. "So you gonna bust a lung tellin' me what I already know, Summers, or you gonna shut up and start t'inkin' what t'do next?"

"I really do hate you," Scott observed.

"Right back at you, but if one of us kills de other now, we cut our fighting force in half. I brought 'im here, so it's my fault. Dis is your town an' your team, so it's your responsibility. So let's get 'em all back an' you kin shoot me afterward an' welcome."

The sound of sirens came from outside, distracting the two young men from their nearly-overwhelming desire to rip one another's throats out. "Go bring them in," Scott ordered, and Gambit obeyed.

As soon as one of the paramedics had taken over applying pressure to Wanda's head, Gambit and Scott made themselves scarce.

"Three guys, even three mutants, couldn't take Blob very far," said Scott. "So where did he end up?"

Gambit surveyed the area. The Brotherhood House was in a rundown neighborhood near the edge of town, too shabby for respectable people and too far from downtown for most criminals. The forest was hundreds of yards away, much too far to take the Blob.

"Dey had to stash him somewhere," said Gambit, thinking aloud. "Somewhere no one'd notice him, not too far, but prob'ly wit'out tryin' t'get through a door. Dat's hard enough carryin' a regular-sized body."

"A bigger door . . . a garage door! You check that side of the street and I'll check this one."

Three houses down, Scott found it.

The garage door didn't have an opener and didn't have a lock, so one brisk tug sent it rattling up along its track. The Blob lay on his face, hog-tied and unconscious.

"Doesn't look like he's hurt," Scott observed, "but we should probably untie him." He winced and scrubbed a hand along the side of his head, as if to ward off an oncoming headache.

"'F you say so, boss," Gambit deadpanned. He follwed Scott into the garage, then stopped. His head hurt.

"Can you just charge these off?" asked Scott, examining the heavy, rough twine that was cutting into Blob's fleshy wrists.

"Yeah." Gambit brought his hands up to his face and flexed his fingers. They were tingling, like he was charging something, or like he'd slept with his wrists bent underneath him and pinched the nerves. "I t'ink my gloves are on too tight."

"Well, no hurry or anything."

Gambit's gloves started to glow.

"Will you quit screwing around already?"

"Who's screwin'?" Gambit demanded, stripping the gloves off as fast as he could. He flung them away from himself, and they exploded into cindery puffs in midair.

"_Gambit!_"

"I didn't do it!"

"I stood right here and watched you!"

"No . . . I didn't mean to!" Gambit held his hands out in front of him, fingers spread, the tingle still burning merrily in his palms. "I can't control it!"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, if I touch something, I'm gonna blow it up whether I want to or not. I can feel it."

"Why?"

"If I knew _why_, Summers, I'd do somet'in' about it!"

Scott pressed his lips together and took a deep breath, struggling to restrain his frustration. Then he stopped and sniffed again. "You smell that?"

Gambit sniffed, too. "Smells sweet."

"And there's something hissing." Scott circled the unconscious Blob. "Hey! There's a cylinder back here."

Hands held well away from his body, Gambit followed. Scott was kneeling next to a compressed-air cylinder about two feet high. "It's just barely open, And it's not labeled." He twisted the knob and closed the valve. "If the gas is what's affecting you, then getting into the fresh air will help."

"How come it ain't doin' nothing to you?" Gambit demanded as he retreated into the sunlight.

"It is. My head's killing me. But it can't send my powers out of control when they're already out of control anyway. Try to get it out of your system, and I'll untie him."

Feeling like a complete idiot, Gambit walked down the sidewalk to the next house and took a few deep breaths. The headache and the tingling started to fade.

Scott joined him a few minutes later. "So . . . a gas that messes with powers. Good to know."

Gambit scoffed.

"Not good to have to deal with," Scott amended, "but good to know. I cut Blob loose, so when he wakes up, he'll be fine. So where do we go from here?"

"How about down dere?" Gambit suggested. He pointed to the street, which had a manhole cover in the middle of it. "Sinister's goons are visible, and so's he. Makes sense he'd go to ground."

"It would also explain why they left Blob here. There's no way he'd fit down a hole that size."

"Well, le's see how we do." After flexing his fingers one more time to be sure the tingles were gone, he took hold of one of the cover's handles. "On de count a'heave."

Scott grabbed the other handle. "Heave."

They dragged the heavy cover out of place and left it to rest on the sidewalk. Scott dropped down onto the ladder below, only to stop halfway down. "I can't see a thing."

Gambit rolled his eyes, drew a card, charged it, and dropped it down the hole. "Dat better, Squinty?"

"Much." Scott dropped the rest of the way to the pavement below, and Gambit followed.

"So which way do we go?" asked Scott dryly as Gambit picked up the card. "Your left or my right?"

The tunnel only extended in one direction. They set off together, Gambit holding the card high so Scott wouldn't slam into a wall.

* * *

"So if you just want blood samples, why don't you just take one from Jean and let her go?" she asked, watching him as he took Jean's pulse and adjusted the drip rate on her IV.

"Oh, I already took one. That's how I knew to keep her on a sedative drip. Her DNA profile shows her to be a telepath as well as a telekinetic, and telepaths react badly to the suppressor gas. They lose their focus, and can injure themselves and the people around them. I'm not particularly interested in Jean's powers. They're quite commonplace. At least, among mutants."

"Then what do you want her for?"

He took Jean's chin in his hand, turning her head to have a better view of her face. "She will be a good mother one day," he observed, smiling at her as though she were his daughter.

"Maybe."

"Jean Gray and Scott Summers are both young, strong, healthy alpha-class mutants. They are currently the best chance for a healthy child of pure alpha parentage. I am very interested in that possibility. Genetic splicing is but a poor replica of real human reproduction. I am anxious to see her child by Scott Summers."

"Gettin' a little ahead of yourself, ain't'cha? Scott won't even kiss her in public."

"Perhaps. But it is as well to be prepared." Sinister picked up an object, slightly smaller than a marble, that had been sitting in a metal tray on the table beside Jean's bed. "This is a remote monitor. Like a radio collar, only of course much smaller and more useful. I'm going to place it in Jean's uterus. If she does become pregnant, the monitor will send me information about the fetus's development and genetic makeup."

Rogue felt nausea squeeze her stomach. "You can't do that!"

"Why not?"

"Because she's a_person_, not some animal! You can't just put monitors and drugs into her because you want to!"

"This is science, Rogue."

"This is _sick_. You're _sick._"

"I'm sorry you don't see this study quite the same way that I do. But unfortunately there's not a great deal you can do about it. Your choices at the moment are to stay awake and watch the process, and perhaps learn something, or to take your medicine now and wake up at home, with neither you nor Jean any the worse for wear."

Rogue looked at Jean, pale and unmoving on the metal bed, then at Sinister, calm and dignified, then at her wrist, confined in a strap of leather she should have been able to tear like paper. She didn't know if she were about to scream or about to cry.

When she opened her mouth, all that came out was, "Gimme the dope."

* * *

Only one French word in this chapter, really, and you all know it by now, but I'll put it in for the sake of having a dictionary section: _ouais_ is 'yeah.'

And I'm sorry about the posting delay on this. I was polishing up a paragraph, then discovered that hadn't properly saved the changes. And instead of sucking it up and rewriting like a big girl, I decided to sulk for three days. So that was my bad.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

* * *

Scott and Gambit proceeded about half a mile down the passage before they saw light. Gambit extinguished his card and tucked it back in his pocket.

Scott pressed himself against the wall and put a finger to his lips, indicating _quiet_.

Gambit pressed himself against the opposite wall and raised an eyebrow, indicating _do I look stupid?_

They inched forward into the light, all senses on alert. The light was coming from a fixture hanging from the ceiling of a round, hub-like chamber. Their tunnel was one of several that branched off in all directions. Some, like theirs, were just open holes; others were blocked by heavy metal doors that had been welded into place. There was no sign of anyone else, and no sound but the faint, distant drip of water and the buzz of the light fixture.

Scott pointed to the door directly across from them. It looked to be the heaviest. Gambit nodded his agreement. If Rogue were down here, she'd be behind the thickest steel wall available. Scott gave a brisk nod, and the two of them broke cover and darted across the open room.

"Can you get it open?" Scott asked, scanning the room for approaching danger while Gambit knelt before the lock.

"_Ouais_, but it'll take time. You better cut it. See dis panel? Slice it straight down, den bore t'rough the bolt underneath. I'll cover you."

They switched positions. Scott twisted his sunglasses so one closed eye was exposed, but he could still see out of the other without destroying anything. The panel covering the bolt sliced away easily, but he took a longer time squinting at the tiny gap between the door and the frame. Finally, he stood up again. "I got most of it, but I don't want to cut through all the way. I don't know what I'd hit on the other side."

Gambit whipped out the card that had previously been serving as a flashlight, charged it, and stuck it into the scorched and melted gap. It exploded with a faint pop and hiss, black smoke seeped out from around the doorframe, and the door swung loose. Gambit hauled it open, and Scott was the first one through the gap.

The room was a prison.

On each side of the doorway, barred walls formed two large cells. Both were full of people, some of whom Gambit recognized from his night with the Morlocks. The air smelled absolutely disgusting, and under the odor of crowded, unwashed bodies was the sweetness they'd smelled in the garage. Gambit felt the tingle of a charge start up in his palms again. He grabbed his collar between the side of his thumb and side of his hand and pulled his shirt up over his nose and mouth, then shoved the door closed with his foot and hip.

"Okay, listen up," Scott ordered. "This is a jailbreak. We're getting you out of here."

There were a scattering of astonished cries of "Scott?" and "Gambit!" from both cages, as well as a resentful "'Bout time you guys showed up," from the inevitable Todd Talanski.

"Gambit!" Callisto shoved her way through the tight-packed crowd of people and gripped the bars of her cage. "I knew you'd come. I knew it."

"Y'know me," Gambit quipped. "Jus'can't stay away from a party." He grinned at her through his shirt-mask. "You got no idea how glad I am t'see you."

"Mutual."

"Your people? Dey okay?"

"I don't know. He took the children, and three of the teenagers. We don't know where they went." Her breath was suddenly coming faster.

"It's okay. We gonna find 'em. Just one problem at a time, okay? Gotta stay calm."

"Oh, I'm calm." She was, too: steady and level-headed murder was burning in her eyes for the people who had taken her children.

"Anybody else hurt?"

"Not _hurt_, really, but all our powers are screwed up. And Spyke . . ."

"What about him?"

"Hi, guys," came a strained moan from the back of Callisto's cell.

Scott fried the lock on the door and went inside, leaving Gambit to blow open the other. "Evan?"

Evan was lying on the floor, his head cushioned by someone's folded-up jacket. His armor plates and his lungs were both rattling as he breathed. His face was bloodless.

"We think his spikes are growing inward," said Callisto. "He's been having trouble breathing, and he can hardly eat."

"Wouldn't eat the junk they're giving us anyway," said Evan, with a chuckle that turned into an anguished moan.

"I don't know if you guys care, but Pietro's hurt, too," Lance announced.

"No, not really," said Gambit.

"Just stuck a big needle into my hip," said Pietro, pretending to be much tougher than everyone knew he was. "No problem." He was walking with a limp and in obvious pain, but he was on his feet, which was the important thing right now.

"Suck it up, hotshot," Gambit told him. "First problem's getting all'a you outta dis supid gas. Anybody know de way back to de Morlock camp from here?"

"Pinpoint should know it," said Callisto, indicating one of her people with a jerk of her head. He was a redhead of about twenty, much too skinny and lanky to be mistaken for a normal human.

"If I can get out of the gas," Pinpoint qualified. "My power's absolute positioning. I always know exactly where I am."

"Now dat is a dang practical power," said Gambit approvingly.

"Has anyone seen Jean?" Scott demanded. "Or Rogue?"

"They haven't been in here," said Lance.

Scott sighed and shared a glance with Gambit. Instinct was telling both of them to just keep searching for the girls—every second of delay was increasing the chances that they'd be hurt, or lost forever. But there were dozens of people here who needed their help, too.

"The first thing to do is get you out of here," Scott told everybody.

"We kin make a run across de hub into one of de tunnels," Gambit offered. "Once we in de dark, it be a lot harder t'track us."

"Or I could drill a tunnel through the side wall and we can reach an exit route without crossing the hub again," suggested Scott.

"Dat'll work, too."

Scott crossed the room into the other cage, apparently liking that wall better for an exit tunnel. "Everybody stand back," he ordered. He lifted the sunglasses and hit the wall full-force, which melted away in a hiss of steam and foul slag-stench. He walked into the hole that he'd made, still blasting, and was soon all but invisible.

Callisto set to work organizing her people. "Okay, everybody stay together. Mac, I need you to carry Spyke."

"I got him," said a barrel-chested, boar-tusked Morlock, who immediately suited action to word by lifting Evan off the ground.

"Pinpoint, you're leading, and Bullet, you bring up the rear. Just get as far away from here as you can. If you can find the way back home, close off the entrances, clear the vents, and don't let anybody in unless they give the signs."

"Aren't you coming with us?" someone demanded, panic in his voice.

"Not until I can bring the kids, too."

Scott reemerged, his clothes covered in a fine layer of dust. "I cut through to another tunnel. I don't know where it goes, but—"

"But if it goes away from here, it's fine," Callisto finished for him. "Move, everybody."

Everybody moved. With remarkable order and calm, the room emptied, leaving only Gambit, Scott, Callisto, and, strangely enough, Lance.

Toad, noticing that his backup had suddenly shrunk by fifty percent, came scrambling back. "Ain'tcha comin', or what?"

"I'm staying to help," Lance told him. "Go on, get outta here."

"What if you die, though?"

"So?"

"So who's gonna pay the bills?"

"Will you just go already?"

Toad just went.

"If you t'ink I'm gonna put in a word for you wit' Kitty, y'sadly mistaken," Gambit told him.

"Shut up and let's get this done," Lance snapped.

Scott eased open the door and scanned the hub. "It's clear. There are four doors besides this one, so any preference on which one we try first?"

Callisto shoved past him and marched across the hub to the nearest door. "This one."

This door was lighter, and held closed only with a latch, no lock. Gambit put his hand on the knob. Scott took position directly behind him, his hand on his sunglasses, and waved Callisto and Lance into positions at either side of the door. Gambit held up his left hand and counted to three on it, then yanked the door open.

He had only a second to register a bare concrete room, a metal desk covered in papers and a laptop computer, and a garish flash of pink and yellow before Scott's beam came sizzling by his ear. It hit the goon on the side of his ribcage; he'd been turning to face the door, but only made it halfway around. He slammed against the far wall and slid to the floor, unconscious.

"One down," Scott announced grimly.

Gambit combed his fingers through the hair over his ear. "Gave me a trim, too." But despite his complaining, he was already advancing into the room to find something with which to tie up their first victim.

Scott grabbed the metal folding chair beside the desk and pulled it up to the laptop computer. "He didn't log out," he announced with satisfaction. "All right, let's see what you guys have been up to."

"We're wasting time," Callisto hissed.

"I just want a minute."

"Get de laces outta his boots," Gambit suggested to Lance, who was helping him with the unconscious body.

While they wrestled with the laces and Callisto paced, keeping one eye forever fixed on the door, Scott typed and read. "There are medical records in here," he announced. "No names; they're listed by patient numbers. But there are lists of . . . I dunno, drugs or something, they all have numbers, too . . . and blood pressures, and records of what they're eating, and tests and results. They're _experiments_. This is a lab."

"Well," said Gambit, pulling tight one of the knots he'd fastened around the thin wrists, "'bout time we cut dey funding."

Scott closed the laptop and headed for the door again. "Right."

The next door was locked. Gambit had at it and popped it open with minimal trouble.

The room was like a hospital ward, only twisted. There were about two dozen patient beds, lined up in rows. The missing Morlocks were strapped into them. Gambit barely had time to swing the door shut behind them before half a dozen voices piped up. "Callisto! Callisto!"

"Oh, my gosh." Callisto ran to the nearest bed and started fighting with the leather buckle around the wrist of the boy in it. "Jeff! Are you hurt? Are you okay?" She freed his opposite wrist, pulled him into a sitting position, hugged him, then pushed him away so she could inspect him for injuries. She combed his hair back off his forehead, then stopped and combed again. "What's that?"

"I think they're horns," mumbled Jeff.

"When did you get them?"

"I think yesterday." He was obviously holding onto his composure by the thinnest of threads; the muscles of his face were twitching with the effort. "He gave me a shot, and I went to sleep, and when I woke up again they were there."

"How old is he?" asked Scott quietly, pausing in his work of freeing the little girl in the next bed.

Callisto looked up at him, her eyes filled with sadness and fury. "Seven."

"And what're his powers?"

"They haven't manifested. Well, _hadn't_."

Gambit shuddered. He'd been thirteen when his biokinesis manifested, and that had been horrible enough. But at _seven_ . . .

But he could see that one more horrified grown-up was going to send Jeff over the edge. So he changed the mood. "_Formidable_, man," he said with a grin as he loosened Jeff's ankle straps. "Y'get t'pick a name an' everyt'tin'. Kin I see?" He brushed Jeff's hair aside to examine the horn stubs. "Nice an' thick. You gonna be able t'headbutt concrete walls wid'dat."

"Anybody else?" Callisto asked. "Mark? Lizzie?"

"He gave us a lot of shots, too," said Mark.

"He gave all of us lots of shots," said one of the other boys.

Lizzie, twisting and fretting inside her restraints and with her eyes squeezed shut, whimpered, "My head hurts."

Callisto crossed the room and started on the straps. "It's okay, baby. You're going home. Your mom's already there."

"Come on, you guys," Scott ordered, fighting with a stubborn buckle on someone's wrist. "Somebody's gonna figure out we're here any second, and we need to have the kids out of here before they do."

With the help of some of the older kids, the entire company was freed within minutes.

"You think you can run?" asked Scott, rubbing the chafed wrist of one of the girls.

Affirmatives from all the kids, except one boy of about nine who looked a little woozy. Gambit picked him up and put him on Lance's back. "You drop him, I kill you."

"Got it."

"We'll cover your escape," said Scott. "Just run and don't stop."

"Everybody stick together," Callisto instructed. "Let's go."

Once again, the hub was silent. Scott pointed to the tunnel he and Gambit had come down, figuring that between Lance and Callisto they'd figure out how to make it from the Brotherhood House to the Morlock camp. Callisto ran. The other children and Lance followed her.

"That's everybody but the girls," said Scott.

"Your friends are in here."

One of the unexplored doors swung open. Sinister stood in the open doorway, a white lab coat hanging unbuttoned over his suit, a stethoscope strung around his neck.

"Rogue and Jean?" he reminded them, when neither Gambit nor Scott said anything. "They're in here. They're asleep at the moment, but they'll come around in a few hours. Would you care to come in?"

"We just set yo'prisoners loose," Gambit announced, feeling this to be an important point that needed to be covered before the conversation went any further.

"Yes, I know. It's quite all right; I can get them back. The test subjects, at least. They have tracers on them. Would you care to come inside? You'll see that your friends are quite all right."

Gambit and Scott exchanged a glance.

Scott's glance said_This sounds like a trap_.

Gambit's said _Pretty good bait._

They walked together through the open doorway.

The room was an operating theater. Jean and Rogue lay on tables in the middle of the room. Massive lights hung over them both. Over Rogue's right shoulder was suspended a machine whose purpose Gambit would have been unsure of if there hadn't been a beam of nearly blinding red light boring the flesh of her arm.

Both boys jumped forward at the same time, instinct driving them to get Rogue away from that laser. Both were stopped: Gambit by Sinister's hand slamming into his chest, as inexorable as a brick wall; Scott by the all-but-forgotten second henchman. Two elastic, purple-sleeved arms wrapped around him, one around the top half of his head and the other around his arms and torso.

"Be careful," Sinister instructed. "Make sure he can breathe."

"He's fine," said the other. His voice was a whisper, a hiss.

"Get off me, you scum!"

"I said _breathe,_George. I'd rather he didn't talk."

"Done." Scott's captor wrapped another length of his arm around Scott's head, pinning his jaw shut.

Gambit considered going for his staff, but he could smell sweetness in the air and his palms were tingling again. If he reached into his pocket, he could end up exploding his coat, or himself. So instead of finding a weapon, he inquired, "Ain't y'gonna tie me up, too? Or did ya run outta Gumbys?"

"I see no reason why I should. You and I are sensible men of business."

"Sensible men a'business," Gambit repeated. "Y'kidnapped me. Y'manipulated me. Y'used me t'hurt dese people . . . people who gave me shelter, my allies an' my friends. Now you got a laser goin' through Rogue's arm. An' y't'ink I'm gonna behave towards you like a sensible man a'business."

"Yes," said Sinister. "There's much I still have to learn about you, but I'm already convinced of your admirable _sangfroid_. Oh, I know you've been playing at being a hero with Charles Xavier's collection of teenagers, but I think I can trust you to behave more reasonably than your headstrong friend here."

Gambit's voice was as cold and fierce as the voice of Death itself. "Shut off de laser."

"Gladly." Sinister crossed to Rogue's bed and turned off the laser. "It's achieved its purpose. See?"

He selected an instrument from a convenient tray and prodded the little circle of charred flesh the laser beam had left. The skin cracked open and a thick trickle of blood oozed down her bare arm.

"The genetic material of the most powerful leech it has ever been my privilege to study," breathed Sinister, gazing at Rogue's blood as though it were a rare painting by a great artist. "Amazing."

He plucked a vial from his instrument table and held it against Rogue's arm so the trickle dripped inside. "Do have any idea what I can do with this?"

"Fingerpaint?"

Sinister glanced up at him, not minding the sarcasm. "You're not much of a scientist, are you?"

"If yo'idea of science is cuttin' open women an'children, den no, not much."

"The human genetic code is rewriting itself, even as we speak. Your DNA . . . and hers, and his . . . is exploding into a crazy new spread of possibilities. Mutants are being born all over the world, and discovering new abilities that humanity has never even dreamed of. And what's being born is only the beginning."

He corked the vial and set it down. "I'm sure you've noticed the gas."

"_Ouais_."

"It was one of my first projects. It's a clumsy concoction, of course. It causes slightly different reactions in every mutant who breathes it, and hardly works at all on involuntary powers. But it's easy and cheap to produce, so I continue to use it. But from this formula I have half a dozen new projects developing, and a dozen more ideas. If I take this gas, and refine it, I could shut off a mutant power entirely, then turn it back on like a light switch whenever I wanted. With Rogue's blood, I can give powers to those who have none. One of those samples you stole for me in Paris may end up as the cure for cancer. Another will cure Alzheimer's. I collected a sample five years ago that could very easily become the greatest biological weapon in history."

"And y'spillin' all dis t'me why, exactly?"

"I thought you'd be interested. You may not care too much about the scientific possibilities, but you must see the financial implications."

"So you gonna get rich. What do I care?"

"You could be part of it, if you'd like. I was very pleased with your work in Paris. You were professional and efficient. And although you may not be very pleased with the little trick I played on you, you certainly can't complain about the promptness or quantity of my payment. If you'd care to sign on, I could offer you regular work, well-paid."

"_Merci_, but livin' outta de pocket of Charles Xavier's plenty money enough for me."

"But you're not living out of that pocket anymore. You left. It was only a matter of time, of course. I knew it and so did you. So I waited for three and a half weeks for you to let down your guard on Rogue so I could move in. You have nowhere to go now, so why not come to me? I'll be able to provide you with enough money to impress even the New Orleans Thieves' Guild."

Gambit felt his jaw clench, and heard strain in his voice, but couldn't relax the muscles of his face or throat. "De N'Awlins T'ieves Guild ain't easily impressed."

"We could certainly make a good effort. And you must consider that I have other incentives to offer you. Flight, indestructibility, eternal life . . . it's all there, in my samples, locked away and waiting to be released. You'd be welcome to any of it. Or if that doesn't interest you enough . . ." He gestured to Rogue. "A complete power suppressant for her is only a matter of time and resources. You help me to obtain the time and resources; I will provide you with the suppressant. And you can give it to whoever you want."

Gambit couldn't help it: he drew in his breath.

"You've made no secret of your attachment to her, I'm afraid. Are you content to let her lead her whole life under the burden for such a tremendous power? You'd never be able to touch her, kiss her. What kind of life would that be for you? What kind of life would that be for her?

"I can set her free, Gambit. If you help me, I can do it."

And Gambit couldn't say anything.

Sinister discretely withdrew to catalog his new blood sample, leaving Gambit to contemplate the unconscious body of the girl he now recognized as his best friend. Her arm was still dripping blood. And he thought about kissing her, how mad she'd been and how wonderful that was, and how he'd known that to be a one-time opportunity. He remembered her shriek of "Don't touch me!" and her long sleeves and her gloves and her scowl. And he thought about taking the offer. The Winged Victory of Samothrace was a cheap trinket compared to the gift of freedom.

Rogue's eye opened.

Then it closed.

Then it opened again.

She'd winked at him.

She was awake.

Gambit bit his tongue until it bled to keep himself from reacting. Rogue was awake.

He glanced at Sinister, who was still watching him out of the corner of his eye as he placed a bar-code sticker on the sample of Rogue's blood. Rogue was behind him now; there was no way he could have seen the wink.

Rogue smiled a little and closed her eye again.

Gambit thought very fast. If Rogue was still on that table, it meant she couldn't pull herself free. The stupid gas, probably. But she could blow herself free if she had his powers, and he could keep Sinister's attention for a few more seconds. There was no time to explain to her that his powers were gone crazy, but she'd feel the tingle and know what it meant. Before he got Scott back for that punch, he was going to have to thank him for "Rogue training." That had been a good idea.

He crossed the room to her, slowly, not taking his eyes off her face, hoping Sinister would think he was still pondering the job offer and what it could mean for Rogue. He looked at her for one long second, taking in every inch of bare skin, trying to decide where he could touch her without being noticed. He finally settled on her shoulder, where her sleeve had been cut away to facilitate the laser. One of her streaks had fallen across her face; he brushed it away. Her nose twitched as her hair tickled it, and Gambit bit his tongue again to keep from smiling.

He turned to Sinister, hands slung behind his back, making sure that his body was blocking her shoulder from Sinister's line of sight. "What kinda wage we talkin' about?"

Off in the corner of the room, Scott made a noise that would probably have sounded like "GAMBIT!" if he'd been able to open his mouth. Gambit reached backwards and pressed the backs of his fingers against Rogue's shoulder.

"I could start you at fifteen hundred a week," Sinister offered.

Gambit made a great show of being shocked . . . easy, since Rogue's absorption was squeezing the energy out of his heart and brain and it would have taken a tougher man than Gambit to endure that without flinching. He broke the connection and folded his arms across his chest, fists closed. "_Mille cinq cents_? Who'd you t'ink you hirin' . . . some two-bit backalley assassin? Guild-trained retainers start at twice dat."

"Perhaps. But you're not exactly Guild."

"_Non_. I better."

Then, because he felt a wave of heat rise up to hit him in the back, he dove forward onto the floor and covered his head.

* * *

_Sangfroid_: This is actually a perfectly good English word; it has been appropriated, which is how English words are born, really. But if you've seen it before and always wanted to know what it meant, it means 'cold blood.' Now you know.

_Mille cinq cents:_One thousand five hundred.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

* * *

The table underneath Rogue exploded into shrapnel, dropping her to the ground with an impact that knocked the air from her lungs. It also made her spit out the sedative she'd been holding under her tongue for ten minutes, and it was a long, tense second before she could gather enough breath to cough. Her whole right arm felt like it was on fire, so she rolled to her left, trying to keep her palm off the floor. Her gloves had blown up along with the table, and Gambit's powers were going crazy inside her skin.

She scrambled wildly for something to charge and throw. Fortunately, the ground was now scattered with bits of table. Gambit was already taking advantage of the mess by grabbing any nearby bit of shrapnel and flinging it at Sinister. Rogue stooped to pick up a table fragment and a pair of scissors and flung them both over Scott's head. Their explosion hit George in the back. He tried to stretch out of the way, but his grip on Scott loosened enough for Scott to twist around and squirm out of his sunglasses. Red light sliced through the room, filling the space with bright spots of burned vision, a hissing cry of pain, and the smell of hot tar.

Then another energy whine cut the air, higher than the sound of Scott's beams, a shrieking, pulsing sound. And Gambit groaned.

Rogue whipped around. Sinister was projecting power from the palms of his hands; she could see the air shimmer with the force of it. He'd hit Gambit in the chest as he tried to rise, and was now pummeling him as he lay writhing on the floor.

"You should have taken the fifteen hundred," Sinister told him.

Rogue charged him. She couldn't call up the all-but-supersonic speed of her flight, and even her sprint was wobbly from pain, but she still managed to work up a considerable speed, and would have slammed Sinister into the wall and sucked the brains out of him if he hadn't caught her wrists.

It was a move worthy of the quickest Spanish bullfighter. In a heartbeat, Rogue found herself with both arms held high above her head, her feet not touching the ground, unable to find leverage anywhere. Her weight was hanging solely from her shoulders; the right one hurt so furiously she could barely think.

"Aren't we the clever girl?" asked Sinister. His eyes and unsettling smile were inches away from her face, but when she tried to slam her forehead into his he just held her further away from him.

Gambit was down. Jean was out. And Scott was fighting blind. But Rouge knew about fighting blind. You had to locate your target some other way . . .

"Scott, shoot me! SHOOT ME, SCOTT!"

The searing beam hit her in the back. She could feel it burning the edges of her injury and melting the synthetic fibers of her shirt into a sludge across her skin. But the band of red light was wider than her skinny body, and scattered shafts of it shot past her sides and over her shoulders. And they hit Sinister.

Sinister snarled in surprise and pain and let go of Rogue. She landed on the floor and rolled away, yelling, "I'm clear!"

Scott narrowed his eyes, focusing the beam on the sound of Sinister's pained cries, upping the intensity.

"Keep it up!" Rogue urged. "He's still standing. Don't stop!"

Scott didn't, not until he heard the heavy thud of Sinister's unconscious body hitting the floor. Then he closed his eyes and demanded, "Everybody okay?"

"Yeah," Rogue gasped, supporting her injured arm with the back of her left hand. "Remy?"

Remy rolled onto his back and lay still for a few seconds, drawing in deep lungfuls of air. "Just catchin' my breath."

"What about Jean?"

Rogue struggled to her feet. "She looks okay. Just some burns from the table."

Scott instinctively looked toward where he had last seen Jean, but of course this didn't do much good. "Where are my glasses?"

"Right here, _mon gar_," Gambit told him, his voice beginning to steady. "I'd hand 'em to ya, but . . ."

"Just tell me where they are," Scott instructed, going down on his knees to feel through the detritus on the floor.

"In front a'you about two feet. Now left. _Non_, my left. Dere y'go. Little farther. _Les voilà_."

Scott shoved the glasses onto his face and shook his head as he tried to make his eyes focus. "Thanks."

"Don't mention it." Gambit tried to sit up, but had to stop halfway, resting on his elbows. Rogue moved to help him, then stopped when she remembered that he couldn't touch her any more than she could touch him.

He glanced up at her, but didn't speak until he was up onto his knees. "So," he announced, "what I came back t'say was, sorry."

Rogue suddenly forgot that she was hurting anywhere at all. She shook her head, a smile spreading gloriously over her face. "No, you're mixed up. That's what you came back to hear _me_ say. Ah'm sorry. Ah'm _so_ sorry. Ah didn't mean it."

"Y'had your point."

"Well, so did you. Thanks for comin' back."

"My pleasure."

"Friends again?"

"If y'make me that cheesecake y'owe me."

"You and your stupid cheesecake!"

Across the room, Jean moaned. "What happened?"

"Long story," Scott told her, pressing a lump of cotton wool against the spot on her arm where he'd pulled out the i.v. "Think you can walk?"

"Yeah, no problem," said Jean, swinging her legs off the edge of the exam table. She stood up, wobbled, and collapsed into Scott's arms. "Oh, gosh, my head . . . not so loud . . ."

Scott winced.

"Sinister said the gas is bad for psychics!" Rogue cried. "They lose it!"

Gambit lunged onto his feet and caught Jean with his forearms just as Scott lost his grip on her. "Give her some space, chatterbrain. You get mine, I get yours."

Instead of taking exception to _mine_, Scott stumbled back out of Jean's immediate psychic range. He straightened up as the pressure on his brain eased, and took a few steadying breaths.

"Better, _Jeanette_?" Gambit asked Jean.

Jean took a few panting breaths, her knees bucked underneath her and her head resting on Gambit's chest. "Yeah. I can't hear anything. Thank you . . . I'll be okay in a minute."

Scott took advantage of Jean's recovery minute to dig some gauze out of a wheeled cabinet and bind up Rogue's bleeding arm with it. Since he wasn't wearing gloves, it was a sloppy job, but it eased the flow of blood and gave Rogue some kind of covering for the hole in her otherwise-perfect defenses. When he'd finished tying the knot, he asked, "So who's for getting out of here?"

"No complaints here," said Gambit, lifting Jean so she could settle her feet underneath herself again.

"What about . . ." Rogue started, looking around.

The room behind her was empty.

" . . . Sinister," she finished with a sigh.

Gambit said a word whose meaning she didn't know, but could guess. "De laptop!"

Scott sprinted for the study, Rogue sprinting after. The laptop, and Pink-Hair who'd been working on it, were gone.

"Crap," Scott announced.

"We can track 'im," said Gambit, coming up from behind with Jean still leaning on him.

Scott shook his head. "Not today. We need to get the girls to Hank."

"I'm fine," Rogue protested stubbornly.

Gambit cocked a tired half-smile. "Y'de toughest t'ing on two legs, _cherie_, an' we all know it. But y'prob'ly gonna wanna change your shirt."

Rogue glanced down at herself. Her shirt had melted onto her; only a broad patch across her front still qualified as fabric. She crossed her arms across herself, scowling.

Gambit waited a second to make sure Jean was steady on her feet, then stripped off his coat and set it around Rogue's shoulders. She wrapped it tightly around herself, reveling in the warmth and the old familiar smell as it warded off the cold and the stinging reek of antiseptic.

"Come on, you guys," said Scott. "Let's go home."

* * *

Jean lay back on her bed, wincing a little as the movement jostled the bandages that covered all her burns. "So," she observed, "weird day."

"Very weird," Scott agreed. "And it's only two thirty in the afternoon. I'm going to have to get ready for training before the team gets home."

Jean groaned. "I was supposed to do that today, wasn't I? I'm sorry."

"I've got it. You need to get some sleep." Scott bent down and kissed her forehead, then stood back to study her face. "I'm so glad you're safe, Jean."

"Close call," Jean breathed, smiling. "But the great thing about close calls is that they aren't disasters." Her eyes started to drift shut as the sedative Hank had given her started to kick in. "I think I'm losing it," she murmured, her voice slurring.

"Good night."

Scott slipped out the door and closed it softly behind him, then made his way downstairs to the infirmary.

Gambit was loitering in the hallway outside, his arms folded across his chest, his expression dark and distant. Scott mirrored his posture on the other side of the hall. "Thought you'd be in there."

"I was," said Gambit. "For some reason, they kicked me out when Hank started working on peeling the melted stuff off her chest."

"Gee, I wonder why."

Gambit grinned. "How's Jean?"

"Asleep."

"Sinister didn'hurt her?"

"Rogue says he didn't, and Hank and the Professor can't find anything wrong with her except for the burns she got off the table. We were lucky . . . lucky you moved so fast."

Gambit scoffed. "If I'd been more careful, none of it woulda happened. Dose little kids . . ."

"They'll be all right. We got them out."

Gambit eyed Scott, a sardonic half-smile upon his lips. "You're in a mighty forgivin' mood."

"Well, you seem to be in a self-blaming mood. And you know how I like disagreeing with you."

Gambit chuckled. So did Scott.

"Look, Gambit. You did a good job today. Thank you."

Gambit inclined his head in a gesture reminiscent of a bow. "Yo'welcome."

"And so are you. For as long as you want to be."

Gambit grinned. "Even if I shut de safeties off, speak _Cadiens_ over de radio, an' buy motorcycles?"

"And flirt with Jean, ignore your homework, and blow up the furniture. In moderation."

"Moderation. _Bon_."

"Think you can do that?"

Gambit smirked and didn't answer the question. "I may end up likin' you someday. No promises, but maybe."

"I won't hold my breath."

Gambit turned and walked away. Scott felt the words 'where are you going' try to come out of his mouth, but he swallowed them.

"Goin' t'check on de Morlocks," Gambit volunteered. "Wanna make sure dey got home safe."

"Okay. What should I tell Rogue?"

Gambit stopped and glanced over his shoulder. "Tell her I'll be back."

* * *

The X-Men arrived home from school to the familiar sounds of Rogue fighting with somebody. "Oh, _man_," Kurt groaned, scrambling out of the van and towards the house.

"Stop being a pain, Stripes. Just hold still for two seconds."

"It is _mah_ arm, and _Ah_ like it this way. So there."

"It won't heal for weeks. It's gonna get infected."

"That's my problem, Logan, not yours."

"My foot it ain't. I didn't stop you getting it, but I'm gonna stop you keeping it. Now c'mere."

"What's going on?" Kurt demanded, skidding to a stop in the doorway of the living room.

"Logan's being stupid," Rogue informed him.

Logan took advantage of her moment of distraction to grab her by the hair and plant one work-roughened palm on her bare shoulder. Rogue's feet shot out from under her as she tried to fly away from him, but he was ready for her and didn't loosen his grip until he was ready to do so. "There," he announced, with brick-wall finality, when he let her go. "All fixed."

Rogue soared away from him and dropped back onto the floor, glaring daggers, then pulled her sleeve down to study the smooth and unbroken skin of her upper arm. "Ah hate you."

"You're welcome," he told her flatly, on his way out of the room.

Kurt stared at her with undisguised confusion. "Vhat the heck is going on?"

"Long day," Rogue sighed, settling her shirt back into place. "How was school?"

"You missed the history test."

"Aw, crap."

* * *

Callisto had only one question for Gambit when he arrived in the Morlock encampment. "Did you kill him?"

Gambit shook his head, kneeling down next to one of the fires where a large, dented pot of something was beginning to boil. "He slipped us."

Callisto nodded, leaning on her heavy staff. "Then in the morning, we leave this place."

Gambit felt a twist of dismay in his gut, but he couldn't deny the wisdom of the decision, now that Sinister knew how to find their camp. "Where will you go?"

"We have a fallback camp. Not as comfortable as this one, but we'll make do. I can show you how to get there."

Gambit shook his head. "Better not. De fewer folks y'got comin' in and out, de safer y'gonna be. But y'know where I am, if ever y'need me. I got a debt to your people needs payin'."

"You saved us today."

"Wouldn't'a needed savin' if I'd'a been more careful. An' before y'go anywhere, better go over dem kids wid a fine-tooth comb. Sinister said he had some kinda tracker on 'em."

"Yes, we found them." Calliso reached into her hip pocket and drew out a handful of little discs, flesh-colored on one side and silver with circuitry on the other. "They were stuck between their shoulderblades. We've checked everyone, and found another on the floor."

Gambit held out his hand, and Callisto poured the little machines into his palm. "Between de shoulderblades," he repeated. "No wonder I couldn't find it. Can't see dat spot by yourself, even wit' a mirror. An' I was alone."

He charged the tracers, held the energy for a minute, then released it. They disintegrated into ash. Gambit held his hand up to his mouth. "Trace dis, boss," he told Sinister, then blew the fine silver powder into the air.

Callisto gave him a half-smile. "Stay and eat something?" she offered.

"_Merci, mais non_. But if dey's anyt'in' down here needs doin', t'help y'all get ready t'leave, dat sure would help me sleep tonight. An' so would you takin' dis." He drew a manila envelope from inside his jacket and placed it in her hand . . . the rest of his emergency stash, down to the last penny.

Callisto didn't open the envelope, but she could tell what was inside it. She tried to shove it back into his hand. "_No_, Gambit. Not between friends."

"It's blood money, an' it's yours. I got no claim to it. It's your rightful due, so you take it. I don't never wanna see it again."

She nodded and didn't fight him anymore, although the envelope stayed closed. Then she offered, "Caliban and Scaleface are working on shutting down our connections to the city's power grid, but they're not exactly electricians. Want to give them a hand?"

Gambit smiled. "I'd be very, very glad to."

* * *

It was one o'clock in the morning when Rogue heard the garage door close. She lifted her head from the dining room table and rubbed her eyes. "Gambit? You home?"

"Yeah." Gambit appeared in the doorway, his arms folded across his chest, leaning his shoulder against the doorframe. "Yeah, I'm home."

Rogue smiled as she stood up from the table and went to meet him.

He slung his hands around her waist and pulled her close to him. "How y'feelin',_chère_?"

"Fine," she told him with an annoyed snarl.

"Y'sound pleased."

"Logan got me by the hair and made me absorb him until the burn was gone."

"Did he? Sorry I missed it."

She stuck her tongue out at him. He grinned and squeezed her.

"So is Evan okay?" she asked, settling her hands into their usual spots on the lapels of his coat.

"He's fine. Everybody's fine. Couple a' de kids are still shell-shocked, but dey breathin,' an' dat's de important t'ing. Whatever dose drugs did to 'em, it ain't poppin' up at de moment."

"With any luck, it never will. Kids are tough. They get over anything."

"Yeah." Gambit sighed, then with visible effort brought his attention back to the conversation. "An' guess what I saw?"

"What?"

"Lance Alvers up t'his elbows in de Morlock's busted power generator. I sent him over dere wit'a kid on his back, one t'ing led t'another, an'when I showed up again he was muttering about gettin' some new wiring and a special size'a wrench."

"You're kidding."

"_Mais non_."

"You gonna tell Kitty?"

"Dunno. Mebbe someday. Fixin' a generator and carryin' a little boy don't make up for what he done t'you."

"What he done to me was stupid, and greedy, and mean. But it's done. He wants to forget about it; Ah wanna forget about it. So you forget about it, too, and it's all settled."

"Mebbe I'll consider dat. He done good t'day. An' your Scott had de politeness t'not kill me . . . beyond one punch in de jaw . . . so mebbe I find de politeness t'not kill Lance. Today."

"Y'know it's like one a.m., so 'today' is 'tomorrow'."

"Ah, yeah. Yesterday, den."

Rogue hit him on the chest with the side of her fist.

"So what're you still doin' up?" Gambit asked her, his hand rubbing slow and soothing circles across her back. "Y'had a rough day. Should be asleep."

"Makin' dinner. You hungry?"

A grin spread across Gambit's face. "Cheesecake for dessert?"

"Eat your dinner first," Rogue ordered, smiling back.

* * *

There was cheesecake. They ate it while sitting on the front steps, in the silent blackness of the early morning. And though the cold didn't bother her, Rogue snuggled against Gambit anyway, and cheerfully submitted to being wrapped in a fold of his jacket.

"Dis is good," he told her, putting another forkful of the cheesecake in his mouth.

"Should be. I practiced for four months. Kurt got so sick of trying cheesecakes. When he left for the summer, I made Hank try 'em. And then on one I mixed up the salt and the sugar, and after that he wouldn't try 'em anymore."

Gambit tried not to choke on his fork. He succeeded, barely. Rogue smacked him on the back anyway.

"What was that for?" Gambit demanded.

"Well, Ah kinda still wanted to hit you anyway. For runnin' out on us and all before I had a chance tuh sleep it off and say I was sorry."

Gambit eyed her speculatively for one long minute, then picked up the remains of his cheesecake and smeared them, very carefully and deliberately, across Rogue's face. Rogue tolerated this very calmly, then just as calmly wiped it off and smeared it back. So Gambit tackled her.

They landed on the grass in a tangle, Rogue shrieking with laughter, Gambit determinedly tickling any part of her he could safely reach. They both had cheesecake all over their faces and shirts. Rogue got her hands into his hair and pulled until he stopped tickling her and let her breathe.

She flopped onto her back in the grass, her head resting on Gambit's stomach. This wasn't very comfortable, since he was still laughing and the muscles of his abdomen bounced her head around, but once he'd steadied his breathing he became a very serviceable pillow. One of his gloved hands started playing with her hair, which made it even better. She wiped some of the cheesecake off her cheek and popped it into her mouth.

She heard and felt him sigh. "'M so glad y'here, _chère_."

She smiled. "Me too."

A long silence stretched, companionable and peaceful. Crickets sang in the distant woods.

"So . . ." Gambit murmured. "Best cheesecake I ever had."

"Not second-best?"

"Not second-best."

"Good." She sighed and arched her back so her head pressed against his hand. He took the hint and rubbed his fingertips against her scalp. She could feel the seams of his gloves at the tips of his fingers. "I like that."

"Me, too."

A thought occurred to her. Rogue turned her head so she was looking up at his face, which was looking down at her. "Remy?"

"_Ouais_?"

"What Sinister said . . . about a suppressant, or a cure . . ."

The fingers in her hair stopped moving for a minute. "_Ouais?_"

"You think he'll really do it?"

He sighed; Rogue's head rose and fell in rhythm with it. "I dunno, _chère_. Mebbe. Struck me as a man who don't take 'no' for an answer, even from science."

Rogue didn't answer. She lay for a few long minutes, contemplating the stars, thinking about the last time she'd touched someone without hurting them. It had been a long time ago. Remy's fingers wandered through her hair, one small thread of contact traversing the silence between them.

"Should I'a taken his offer?" Remy asked her.

"_No_." Rogue reached up to grab a fistful of his coat, as though to keep him from running off after Sinister. "No, of course not. For a second there, I thought you were gonna, and it scared me to death."

"For a second dere, I t'ought I was gonna, too," he admitted. "Woulda been good perks."

"Not good enough."

"No."

Rogue looked at him again. His eyes gleamed scarlet in the dark, watching her with a gaze so intense it was almost like a touch. "Remy?"

"Yeah?"

"If you could kiss me . . . would you want to?"

Remy smiled. "_Chère_, I know I can't kiss you an' I still want to."

"Oh." She cast her eyes down, feeling a blush rise in her face that she knew he could see, even in the dark. "Ah'm sorry."

"Hey." He sat up on his elbows, making her do the same, so he could look her directly in the face. "You got a lotta t'ings you kin be sorry for. You kin be sorry y'yelled at me. You kin be sorry we both missed dat history test and are gonna catch hell for it in de mornin'. You kin be sorry y'got cheesecake up my nose. But I'm here wid you 'cause I wanna be, so don't you ever be sorry fo'dat. _Comprends_?"

"What?"

"Y'understand?"

"Oh. Yeah, except the '_comprends_' part."

Remy snorted. "We gotta start teachin' you French."

"Soon as we get done teachin' me how to pick locks, hop boxcars, and drive a motorcycle."

"Really? You wanna learn all that?"

"_No!_" Rogue thwacked him on the chest. "I ain't pickin' up your nasty jailbird habits."

"Who you callin' jailbird? I never done time. Gotta get caught first."

"If you were any fuller of yourself, you'd explode."

He shrugged, acknowledging the hit.

Rogue felt herself blushing again; Remy's eyes flickered to her face with interest. "Ah . . . Ah am learnin' French," she admitted, looking down at the grass so she wouldn't have to see the grin on his face. "Sixth period. Ah had it free, so Ah signed up. Didn't really want anybody else to know. It was kinda stupid."

"You're kidding."

"Uh-uh. But Ah think Ah'm gonna drop it. Ah can't figure out them stupid verbs."

"Verbs are easy. Just gotta know 'em."

"That's the problem, stupid."

He laughed and hugged her, so she ended up lying on his chest with his arms around her back. "I'll show you t'morrow, _chère_. If you can make it t'trainin' without gettin' kidnapped."

"Or eaten by Ms. Rice. She's gonna kill us. 'Dear Ms. Rice, please excuse Rogue for missing her history test, she was being kidnapped by a mad scientist.'"

"We got a weird, weird life."

"The only really weird part is how normal it is sometimes."

"You should go t'bed."

"You should, too."

"Would, but I got a pretty girl lyin' on top'a me."

"_You_ put me here."

"So _you_ get off."

"You want me to get off?"

"Since y'ask, not particularly. But y'should go t'bed."

"You're the one who keeps bringing it up. _You_ go to bed!"

Above them, a window banged open. "Stripes, Gumbo, if you don't quit arguing about it and actually _go to bed, right now,_ you're running laps around the house until sunup."

Rogue's eyes flew open, half in horror and half in hysterics. "You can hear us?" she demanded, in the general direction of the voice. "But we soundproofed that room!"

"Not the window," Logan deadpanned. There was a decided wham as the window slammed shut again.

Rogue moaned and rolled off Gambit. "That was embarrassing."

"He'll forget about it." Gambit jumped up and helped her up; she rose as lightly as a feather and set her feet in the grass. "G'night, _chère_."

"See you in the morning?"

"Promise."

* * *

Most of these are just reminders, but we'll put 'em in anyway.

_Mon gar_: dude; man.

_Les voilà_: there they are.

_Cadiens_: The Cajun form of the word Cajun, which is Gambit's native dialect.

_Merci, mais non:_ Thanks, but no.

_Mais non_: Certainly not!


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

* * *

In the early hours of the morning, before the students were up for training, the teachers of the Xavier Institute held a conference.

"I say we hunt him and we take him down," offered Logan, to nobody's surprise.

"But how effective would that be?" asked Professor Xavier calmly. "You can track him while he remains on foot, but how far will that go?"

"What of Cerebro?" asked Storm.

"I verified the logs from yesterday. Although it picked up readings from both of Sinister's accomplices, there was nothing from him."

"But that's impossible," Scott insisted. "He had powers . . . a kind of energy projection from his hands. I saw it. And no ordinary human would have lasted so long against my beams, not full-blast like I hit him with. Jean even hit him with a couple of pens, and he didn't bleed."

It's evident that he has abilities, but it is equally obvious that they are not abilities like ours. Whatever he is, he is not a mutant."

"But his henchmen are," offered Storm. "Perhaps tracing them would lead us where we wish to go."

"I'd vote no," offered Hank. "Not unless we could attack in force, with the entire team. Chasing after him with a smaller group would just be sending him more lab rats. If he wants _us_, then the wisest course would be to keep us as far away from him as possible. Here at the Institute, we're on our home turf and we have strength in numbers. He was wary of attacking us, and I think he learned his lesson when he tried. With the students here, and together, they are safe."

"He's got Rogue's blood in a test tube," Logan snarled. "He doesn't need anything that powerful, and _she_ don't need another guilt complex about her powers."

Professor Xavier silenced Logan with a gentle gesture of his hand. "Scott, you said that Sinister had induced an early onset of powers in one of the Morlock children."

"Yeah."

"That's quite a trick, after only three weeks of experimenting," observed Hank.

"Not if you know how to do it," said Professor Xavier dryly. "This isn't the first instance we've seen of a mutant manifestation being artificially, prematurely induced. Sinister must have had the records from the first experiment."

"Who conducted that experiment?" asked Hank.

"Magneto. And his test subject was a second-generation mutant, like Jeff. Kurt."

Worried glances were exchanged around the table.

"That gives us somewhere to start looking for a paper trail. Hank, you and I will look into it. Scott and Logan, it's about time to wake up the students for training. Storm, breakfast."

* * *

"We've really got to work out a better system for breakfast," Scott observed to Jean, watching a foot-high stack of pancakes vanish long before he could get to it. "Like sitting down and eating at the table, maybe. Didn't we used to do that?"

"That was before we had a household of twelve people who all had to be at school on time," Jean told him. There was still an angry pink mark across one of her cheeks, like a sunburn, but she was awake and in good humor, not even limping. A very long night's sleep seemed to have done her a world of good.

"Just fight for it,_mon gar_," Gambit advised him. Then, to demonstrate, he slipped between Ray and Amara, pulled Kitty's ponytail to distract her, and snatched the box of pop-tarts she'd been reaching for. He took one and pitched the box to Scott.

"Safe," Jean announced, spreading her hands like an umpire. She reached into the box and pulled out a pop-tart. "But good luck getting to the toaster."

Kitty pouted and climbed up on the counter to find another box at the back of the cupboard.

"Hey," Jamie demanded. "Why is there three-quarters of a cheesecake in the fridge?"

"It's mine. Don't touch it," Rogue ordered, still pulling her left glove on as she entered the kitchen. "Ready to go?"

"_Ouais._" Gambit tossed the rest of the pop-tart in his mouth and maneuvered back across the kitchen to join her.

"Helmets," Logan ordered, entering from the hallway. He had one in each hand, and he shoved them unceremoniously into Gambit's and Rogue's chests.

"What do Ah need a helmet for?" demanded Rogue.

"What do _I_ need a helmet for?" was the not unreasonable reply. "Professor's orders, Stripes."

Rogue rolled her eyes and obediently strapped it on.

"Come on, guys," Scott ordered the room at large. "Let's go. You're gonna be late. Kurt, keys."

He pitched the van key across the room to Kurt, who caught it one handed and vanished to the garage.

"Anybody seen my backpack?"

"It's in the hall."

"Amara, don't forget I need my notes back before fourth period, okay?"

"Shotgun!"

"I called shotgun yesterday!"

"You can't call shotgun yesterday; it doesn't count."

Gambit raised an eyebrow at Rogue. "You want shotgun?"

"Unless you're gonna let me drive."

"Ha! _Absoluement pas_."

"_Pourquoi?_" Rogue challenged, grinning.

"_Parce que c'est_ma_ moto. En achete-toi une._"

"Okay, lost me."

They left the kitchen, still teasing one another, and their conversation was lost in the babble.

Jean slipped her arm through Scott's. "I call shotgun."

* * *

When Scott pulled the convertible onto the driveway, Gambit and Rogue were already astride the motorcycle, Rogue settling her bag behind her so it would be out of the way. Gambit shot Scott a mischievous, provoking grin, and twisted the throttle on the bike. The engine growled, menacing and angry.

Scott hesitated for a moment, unsure of whether Gambit was teasing him, challenging him, or threatening him. Then he shoved the gearshift into neutral and pressed down on the gas. The convertible's engine purred, the musical sound of a powerful, subtle, well-cared-for machine. Gambit grinned his approval.

From the front door of the mansion, Logan snorted, knowing perfectly well that his Harley could out-snarl both their sissy engines any day of the week.

Scott's gaze lingered for a second on Rogue's laughing face, then darted to Jean's sweet but slightly mischievous grin. Behind him, he could hear Kurt backing the van out of the garage.

_Is my team still in danger?_

He'd meant to think it to himself, but had forgotten about his psychic girlfriend in the passenger seat. _It's tomorrow's problem,_ she reminded him gently. _Right now, we've got to get going or Kurt's going to t-bone us._

_Right. _Scott put the car in first and pulled forward, so that the convertible and the bike were side-by-side.

"Hey, Gambit," he called.

Gambit was settling the chinstrap of his helmet into place. "_Ouais?_"

"What did you mean, 'Breaking into the Louvre'?"

Scott had never seen a wickeder, cheekier, more gleeful look on a human face. Behind him, Rogue's eyes went about as wide as they could go, her mouth trembling with the effort of maintaining a neutral expression. She grabbed Gambit around the waist and hid her face against his back, her shoulders shaking with suppressed laughter. Gambit put the bike in gear and took off.

"He _didn't,"_Jean breathed, her expression hovering between horror and hysteria.

Scott let out the clutch and pressed down with unusual force on the gas pedal, shaking his head. "On second thought, I really don't want to know."

* * *

Logan shook his head as he watched first the motorcycle, then the convertible, then the X-Van disappear down the road. "Dumb kids," he observed, with gruff affection.

"Thank goodness they get to stay that way," observed Professor Xavier, from the hallway behind him. "Today, at least."

"One day at a time," said Logan. With one last glance at the distant vehicles, he went back inside and shut the door.

* * *

_Absoluement pas_: Absolutely not.

_Pourquoi?_: Why?

_Parce que c'est_ma_ moto. En achete-toi une_: Because it's _my_ motorcycle. Buy your own.

And this, my friends, is the conclusion of another adventure. Will there be more? Quite possibly. I can't seem to close a story without leaving about fifty loose ends, can I? But while I work on that, I'd like to say thank you to you all for your inspiring and thought-provoking feedback. It's kept me motivated and on my toes. I hope you've enjoyed reading my chapters half as much as I've enjoyed reading your thoughts on them.

I remain, yours et cetera,

Seriana Ritani


End file.
